plugin menu case

[AlanHK]

The plugin menu lists installed plugins alphabetically, but first all the capitalised names, then those beginning lower case. So cssRemoveUnusedSelectors comes after TagMechanic.

Can menu lists be made case-insensitive?

[KevinH]

Their names are case sensitive. So they are properly ordered. Why would we want to change the order to be something it is not?

Plus we provide 10 fast launch plugins with settable icons. These can be set in any order the user desires.

We are really going to need some sound reasoning and logical arguments before considering any such change.

[davidfor]

Most people don't think that sorting words is case sensitive. Would you expect a dictionary or encyclopaedia to be sorted that way? Or the book titles in a store?

It is a pet peeve of mine. If I'm just sorting a list to process it in code, it probably doesn't matter. But, if it is a list I am reading, I expect a non-case sensitive sort.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Their names are case sensitive. So they are properly ordered. Why would we want to change the order to be something it is not?

Plus we provide 10 fast launch plugins with settable icons. These can be set in any order the user desires.

We are really going to need some sound reasoning and logical arguments before considering any such change.

IMO they should be ordered in the menu in the same sequence as they appear in the MR plugin index.

Some of us don't use toolbars; they waste space, they require a mouse or similar, they tend to change their relative locations, and the icons are subject to the whim of the Instagram fashionista brigade

But I wouldn't die in a ditch to have them that way.

BR

[DiapDealer]

The eyeroll emoticon here is not nearly big enough to express my opinion of this topic.

[patrik]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The eyeroll emoticon here is not nearly big enough to express my opinion of this topic.

Well, it's actually a bit of an annoyance.

Every time you look through the plugins searching for one specific plugin, it stops your flow, triggering a bit of negative emotion.

It just would be so very much easier to have in order. That's how we humans function.

But all in all it's just a tiny thing, there are much more important stuff regarding Sigil, so I'm sure we are all ok with whatever you spend your time on, but it would be helpful.

(I'm guessing you are too used to looking there that you pretty much know where your installed plugins are, thus it's not so much searching through a list of characters but zooming in on a picture, FWIW.)

PS. I think we are all a bit spoiled by how fast you usually fix things....

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

So cssRemoveUnusedSelectors comes after TagMechanic.Can menu lists be made case-insensitive?

If the default sort order bothers you so much, you could easily rename plugins yourself. Simply edit plugin.xml and change:

  <name>cssRemoveUnusedSelectors</name>

to:

  <name>CssRemoveUnusedSelectors</name>

(If you don't have a Windows machine, you'll also need to rename the plugin folder.)

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by patrik

PS. I think we are all a bit spoiled by how fast you usually fix things....

We are quick to fix things that are broken. As it should be. But annoyances and pet peeves? They go straight to the bottom of the pile of things on which to spend our limited time to develop Sigil. This is the very definition of a "first world problem."

I recommend taking a few steps back to get a better angle on the "issue."

"It takes me too long to find the plug-in I want in the long list of useful utilities that volunteer developers have given me for free."

Never mind that a feature was already added (by volunteer programmers) to let users prioritize the favorites of their favorites, and assign keyboard shortcuts to them, regardless of whether or not the plug-in shortcut icons (which are fully customizable for the user who dislikes Sigil's revolving door of new icons ) are visible or not.

Yeah, It's almost a travesty.

[DiapDealer]

And even if we did "fix" it, it's highly unlikely that the "fix" would ever trickle down to the legacy version of Sigil that the OP uses. 0.9.13-Legacy is very likely the end of the line for that unofficial version of Sigil. Too many differences from the current main Sigil branch to easily cherry-pick commits.

[AlanHK]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Their names are case sensitive. So they are properly ordered. Why would we want to change the order to be something it is not?

Proper if you define "proper" order as "order of glyphs in whatever character set".
Look in a dictionary, any (professionally published) book index. "Alphabetical order" is not in normal use case sensitive.

Originally Posted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabetical_order

Capital letters (upper case) are generally considered to be identical to their corresponding lower case letters for the purposes of alphabetical ordering

If I'm looking for "plugin2" I expect to find it before "Plugin3", not after.

I may recall the name of a plugin I use infrequently, but not the idiosyncratic capitalisation. So I have to look in two places instead of one.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

And even if we did "fix" it, it's highly unlikely that the "fix" would ever trickle down to the legacy version of Sigil that the OP uses. 0.9.13-Legacy is very likely the end of the line for that unofficial version of Sigil. Too many differences from the current main Sigil branch to easily cherry-pick commits.

Please stop dismissing every suggestion I make on these grounds.
I'm not asking for a personal edition. If no one else finds it worthy, that's fine.
The issue is small, but please address it on its merits instead of by who made it and making "eye-rolling" remarks.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

Please stop dismissing every suggestion I make on these grounds.

No.

Originally Posted by AlanHK

The issue is small, but please address it on its merits instead of by who made it and making "eye-rolling" remarks.

I have. It doesn't matter to me who made this complaint, my eyes would have rolled just the same.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by AlanHK

Can menu lists be made case-insensitive?

I agree that case-insensitive would be a better alternative for this specific menu.

I only have all Firstcapital letter plugins, so I never ran across this issue. I only have 14 plugins installed, but I would find it very odd if my mind was looking for "that CSS plugin":

• AccessAide
• DOCXImport
• [...]
• cssRemoveUnusedSelectors

and find it at the bottom of the list.

My mind knows it starts with a "C" for CSS. A normal human wouldn't be thinking: "Ahh yes, c comes after D".

Note: LibreOffice/Excel also sorts case-insensitively.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

But annoyances and pet peeves? They go straight to the bottom of the pile of things on which to spend our limited time to develop Sigil. This is the very definition of a "first world problem."

[...]

And even if we did "fix" it, it's highly unlikely that the "fix" would ever trickle down to the legacy version of Sigil that the OP uses.

Come on, Diap... little niggles add up. But there was no reason to answer this way.

[theducks]

I find it interesting all the folk who can't deal with Library (phone book) order display (Ln, Fn) here or Calibre.
Maybe I have no problem dealing with ASCII order because I started back with punched cards and fan-fold listings, where you ran your finger down the sheet to find a name.

But is there a technicl reason not to do a case insensitive sort? A Major amount of effort IS a valid reason in my book.
A couple of lines of code
But the folk who are doing the work still trumps us users

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by theducks

But is there a technicl reason not to do a case insensitive sort? A Major amount of effort IS a valid reason in my book.
A couple of lines of code

I wasn't going to bust out that excuse.

Many times in programming, things that seem trivial on the surface aren't. And that one-line fix sometimes has hours/days of hidden work behind it.

I'm reminded of a post on one of my favorite games, Factorio:

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-288

Years ago when I was just getting into the programming field I was told by others that someone typically starts in the QA/bug tester positions and if they prove themselves can move on to do the "fun" work. That implies that the QA/bug tester positions aren't fun and that I should look forward to being done with those tasks. [...]

Some of the more interesting ones from the 0.17 bug fixing so far:

• The game would crash when bringing up the escape menu in multiplayer while in the middle of using blueprints/deconstruction planners then releasing the mouse button.
• The game GUI would be hidden if the game was saved and loaded while the technology GUI was open.

[...]

Most of these where ~10 line fixes but the reproduction steps took anywhere from a few hours to a day.

Plus, Kevin+Diap are busy focusing on more major issues. Every spare minute sucked away by this is time taken away from more major fixes.

And the amount of users who:

• Even visit the Plugins Menu
• Have lots of plugins
• Even have a lowercase plugin name...

is minuscule.

I'm not promising anything... but if Diap/Kevin put this one at the very bottom of the pile, I'll figure out building Sigil from source, etc. etc. and see if I can take a stab at it.

[KevinH]

pull request and or patches are always welcome!