Fediverse @lemmy.world solrize @lemmy.world 4 mo. ago

Lemmy (etc.): allow sorting preference for search

It's a pain that search results on lemmy show by default ordered by some useless relevance ranking. I can't think of a single time I didn't want newest first. I couldn't find a preference to request that. It would be great if there was one.

The suggestion on c/support on lemmy.world was to make this kind of request on github, but it seems anti-FOSS to me to require a Microsoft account for a fediverse request, so I'm posting here and hoping for the best.

Thanks for any consideration!

18 comments

"anti-FOSS to me to require a Microsoft account for a fediverse request, so I’m posting here and hoping for the best."

It's more about efficiency and prioritization of actions than anything else.

Could the devs spend time and effort migrating the code to another repo, such as Codeberg? Yes. Would the benefits be worth the time and effort? Debatable.

You can just create a throwaway account for GitHub. Not ideal, but devs have said multiple times that they don't have the time to track feature requests elsewhere than on the GitHub (and it makes sense)

Alternatively, if having code on a FOSS repo is very important to you, you can request it on https://codeberg.org/rimu/pyfedi/, the repo for https://piefed.social/
- You can just create a throwaway account for GitHub
  
  I know I'm getting off-topic, but the last time I tried this it ended up being locked either because it didn't like a simplelogin email or because I didn't give it a phone number. Hopefully that was an edge case but I haven't tried again recently.
- This is about getting issues to the devs, not hosting a copy of the code. Git is easy to self-host and that's what I do with my own repos.
  
  My suggestion is if you’re not willing to get heavily involved in the process of re-hosting the code, then you should just go along with the system the lemmy devs have chosen, which includes github.
  
  By posting the feature request here instead of github, you’re volunteering other people’s time to improve things.
  
  Generally speaking, if you want to make the world a better place you should volunteer your own effort and resources, not other people’s.
There are some apps that are better at interpreting the results. Most are free with some premium paid features.
- I don't want the software to interpret the results, I just want to get them sorted newest first without having to click an extra time. Also this being a free software activist project, the idea of adding on a paid feature seems pretty far out of place.
  
  Understood and agreed. It is indeed hard to get volunteers who are paid nothing to pay any attention to what you want.
I just changed my default sort from Hot to New and then back again - so those two values for that option definitely work. If you are using some third-party client to access Lemmy, I cannot say the same for it - perhaps it has a bug? But most places on Lemmy I've been have these in their settings and they work - the issue is on your end.

Which is empowering bc you can play around with a bunch of different things and find a way that will work, rather than have to wait on the devs to decide to help or not:-).

e.g. you could bookmark this link: https://lemmy.world/?dataType=Post&sort=New. Speaking of, perhaps your bookmark to access Lemmy has a similar setting, but for Hot and that is overriding your default choice? Or after you set the default, are you certain that it is saving properly?

Anyway, I hope I gave you some interesting ideas to check up on:-).
- Thanks, but that is showing posts and I am hoping to sort search results. Like:
  
  https://lemmy.world/search?q=trump&type=All&listingType=All&page=1&sort=TopAll
  
  First result is a month old. There is a pulldown to change it on a single result page, but no way I can see to change the default.
  
  Sorry for the misunderstanding.
  
  This URL seems to work for new: https://lemmy.world/search?type=Posts&listingType=All&page=1&sort=New, so until they fix it in the UI you could bookmark that?
  
  I imagine they will do a lot of work on the search feature at some point.
I agree, the search results should default to sort by new. Regardless of what your default user setting is. This is how it works on https://old.lemmy.world
- Aha, I didn't know about or forgot about old.lemmy.world. I'll try that now. But, I'd be satisfied with whatever default, as long as there is a way to change it.
You already can?

It defaults to Top all time but new and old are also among the options.

Most other UIs also have those sort options exposed.
It's in your settings dawg...

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