Sort by Title - missing ?

This feature disappeared with the latest enhancements! This is one of the most important sequencing features but I don't think Delcampe realised this fact. I believe that it is a critical issue for my customers ... and I am very disappointed that it has been overlooked and not fixed asa priority. I have raised this in Seb's post under 'Delcampe Web site' and raised the matter with Support - I'm still awaiting a response.

I hope that this feature will reappear tomorrow.

Alan Catherall
[Hoatzinstamps]

you are 100% right in this statement...

This is one of the most important sequencing features but I don't think Delcampe realised this fact.

I have raised this 'error' or 'feature removal' with Support but I have yet to receive an acknowledgement that this matter will be addressed. I suspect there are quite a few other problems arising out the latest changes - the search facility does a few strange things now and some of the new links are wrong too.

I have no doubt that the removal of the 'Sort by Title' facility is losing me sales especially where I have 100s of items in a Category!

All very frustrating ....

Alan Catherall
[Hoatzinstamps]

you are 100% right in this statement...

This is one of the most important sequencing features but I don't think Delcampe realised this fact.

Delcampe have confirmed to me this afternoon that they cannot guarantee that this feature will return to the site. They imply that sorting features are much quicker without it and also that only 0.5% of users actually use the feature.

I have expressed my disappointment as it was a feature that I strongly recommended my customers to use to view listings in a useful date sequence order.

Unless others agree then it looks as if a unique feature will disappear from the site.

Alan Catherall
[Hoatzinstamps]

Drawing on my long background in IT I can't understand why sorting by title should be any more difficult than sorting by any other parameter

Do you think they really mean "can't be bothered", especially since it was a common -almost default - feature for years?

I am still in IT and I can't figure it out.

It makes no sense.

Why include something in the original announcement, then drop it and not tell anyone, and then suggest that the feature isn't really wanted by the majority of users and can't be re-introduced anyway because it is detrimental to the system!

It's just incredibly bizarre.

Alan Catherall
[Hoatzinstamps]

Drawing on my long background in IT I can't understand why sorting by title should be any more difficult than sorting by any other parameter

Do you think they really mean "can't be bothered", especially since it was a common -almost default - feature for years?

I'm not sure "can't be bothered" is the reason, but I have noticed situations where the queries returned incomplete information. Records were missing.

delcampe may be getting to a point where their database(s) are entering a new phase in size or maybe puking at the current size. That said, inherent issues with the specific database - SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, etc... may have more to blame than delcampe.

Personally, I'd like to know what they're working on because it is interesting to an IT person, such as myself. I did work arounds when the records didn't all show up.

I guess the silent treatment is expecting people just to go away and it will work itself out. Doesn't always work like that.

Tracy

Only 1 reason that sort by title would be a bother - too big a query load. When sorting by primary keys or even our short personal numbers, the response time will be less and the query load will also be less.

The return on titles may get extremely huge. Try sorting 800,000 Belgian stamps by title. Better have some great RAM, nice IP service and good hard drive space.

Since all of this seems to be done on the server side, the overhead could bury CPUs quickly with many requests.

That said, I do agree that searching for "limited scope" lists by title are an absolute MUST.

Part of DP 101 is that a character type will be slower than a numeric type. I don't know if that's the reason, but one can only guess.

Tracy

I think it would be reasonable to offer this feature at the very least within Seller's Store ... and this is really where it is needed. The number of items within a Seller Category would not normally be excessive (no doubt there'll be an exception).

I just keep my fingers crossed that Delcampe may yet surprise us.

Alan Catherall
[Hoatzinstamps]

As can be seen in other threads, there is at least one seller who has over half a million listings in the Stamp category

Now that is a LOT of stamps. I only have about 3,000 items on-line and may top out at 20,000 some day in a few centuries.

He/She is definitely using delcampe as his/her own personal store. Works for business, bad for searchers, may be good for buyers.

OK... but is this person (don't need to know who it is) generating some decent income for self and for delcampe?

I believe that my current inventory is about right for fees paid to use the site. The quality (higher CV) items will eventually appear more frequently and then there will be more return - if anyone is buying.

If, on the other hand, this person's selling is kaput over a long period of time - maybe it's time to send a message about reducing inventory.

In a sense, people could use delcampe as a dumping ground for just about anything. Since, however, I am a member of a few philatelic clubs including APS, I do have some higher standard to uphold.

As you can see, though, your mileage may vary.

Tracy

Given the prices he/she lists at, I doubt that there are few sales and that Delcampe gets very little benefit.

As can be seen in other threads, there is at least one seller who has over half a million listings in the Stamp category

Sort by Title - missing ?

Hello all,

Please read here: Link (http)

S. Delcampe

Hello all,

Please read here: Link (http)

S. Delcampe

My assumption was correct without even knowing the details. OK, I can understand.

Now, that said... each letter has a numeric equivalent in ASCII, Unicode, etc. Although the VAL(Title) (a standard function) would return 0 and produce the same results as we have now -or- whatever numerals are in the 1st part of the character field...

What about setting up a "hash number" field, consisting of, say, the first 40 characters of the Title? It would be Type double, Numeric. When a record gets added, the ASCII / Unicode characters are turned to their numeric equivalents and stored in that field. When having leading zeroes, the problem is instantly solved by tacking on a 1 digit standard code for ALL auctions, like a 9 and possibly a trailer number to finish.

So, "Scott # 1" would convert to 9 + ASCII / Unicode + trailer representations of the rest of the number.

Since there are only up to FFFF number of normal codes, each letter represents 4 digits. So, to complete the example, we would have:

1 - 9 = Mandatory beginning number
S = 0053
c = 0063
o = 006f
t = 0074
t = 0074
= 00a0
# = 0023
1 = 0031

Equals = 9 0053 0063 006F 0074 0074 00A0 0023 0031 EndOfString

Replace HashNumber with Convert(Title)

It would sort properly every time, ascending or descending. One could always tack a space or delimiter on the end as "end of title". This is because the system uses only one way to do things, not multiple ways.

When sorting by title, use the hash code field to sort but display the title, of course. This is a common query in databases.

Converting the title in alphabetical code to numeric is very easy to do and takes up almost no CPU power.

Further, when sorting, the sort would run quite fast.

This, of course, is a short discourse on the subject. There may be a bug or 2, but then again, that's what forums are all about. Discussion!

BTW, I just wrote a small conversion program to test out a single title. Seems to work fine. Would have to try it on an array or on records.

Tracy

Hi Tracy,


You are good ... it is the way we are presently improving the system


Sébastien

Hello,

In the meantime, this has been fixed

Sebastien

I've seen that!

Good move... Hopefully, people will use it and comment.

Thanks!

Tracy