This confused a me a lot because apart from “card type number” not being well documented the sort order itself comes with a misleading name. After testing, it seems the cards with same card type number are ordered by “gather order”. It took me quite a number of attempts to make sure I was right.
Can we rename this? And change the order so that “order gathered” comes before “card type, then order gathered”. It will make explanation easier in the manual and tooltips.
We cannot easily change the order. No strong feelings on adding ‘order gathered’ to the end, though it will be inconsistent with the random note option. Anyone else want to chime in?
How undesirable is having a slightly different order in tooltips and manual?
Let’s not. It will probably lead to a future “bug report” about being inconsistent.
Just to clarify – is this about New card sort order? Deck Options - Anki Manual
From what I understand, the proposal is to change just the first one?
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by inconsistent.
My only other concern about this is that it’s not necessary. The cards arrive in “order gathered,” so the names only really need to indicate where there is a change to that order. I think that a clarification in the manual/tooltip text would be sufficient.
Changing the name of the default sort order will be highly visible and affect a lot of users. That should be reserved for times when the functionality is changing (which it isn’t), or the name has caused a great deal of confusion (which it hasn’t).
Sorry, thinko on my part.
I can see how it might make things clearer to users who aren’t familiar with how an existing order can be partially preserved when sorting. But we now have one arguing for and one against. Anyone else want to chime in?
I think of gathering (or drawing/fetching as we inconsistently call it at times) as an act of collecting, and then the sort order sorts the cards. I wouldn’t assume a lot of people know “sort order” is modifying the “gather order”.
Given that a lot of people use burying, I would expect it to be explained how “Card type” sorts cards of a particular card type. (When I switched to V3, I manually changed all of my presets to use “order gathered”.)
The suggested change looks good to me.
I suppose the change will clarify the option’s behavior about a major potential concern of users or a misleading point. With the change, users can grasp the behavior’s point by just seeing the option’s name.
Also, the change is an addition of a not-excessive supplement to the existing words. So, I guess the change won’t cause considerable confusion or other problems.
If some people get confused on whether the sorting suddenly has changed, we also shouldn’t forget many others will be empowered to take decisions that fit their workflow. It’s putting the information where it belongs.
I’ve made the change, but not adjusted the key, so that the existing translations are not broken.