Sort – Drag & drop
It works like this:
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The user presses the hard key for the options menu.
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The Options menu slides into the screen. When the ‘rearrange’ function in the main menu is tapped…
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… the drag & drop mode is accessed, that can be identified by a visual target, added to every list item and…
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… a button bar with buttons for confirming and canceling the actions at the bottom of the screen.
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The user can tap & hold the target, and drag it to a different position on the screen.
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When released, the item is dropped at that particular position. The user can tap OK or Cancel to complete the action.
Use when
Your app can use drag & drop for sorting when the order of a list is important and should be customizable. Provide a clear visual target for this gesture. The target is usually located on the right of a list item. Show the actual movement of the item to make clear to the user what is happening. If you want your items to be sorted automatically according to a certain sort-key (such as name or size), consider using a sort-key dialog to sort.
The Good
- Allows easy and intuitive rearranging of list items
The Bad
- Requires a lot of steps before the actual rearrangement can be made
- The rearrange touch targets can be easily overlooked
- Cannot be used without touchscreen (JBM)
- Hard to rearrange when the list scrolls (Dorival)
Examples
Google stocks
HTC Sense Music player playlist
Noodles
3 Responses to Sort – Drag & drop
There isn’t any working public implementation of this.
You’re wrong, the CommonsWare Android Components has a drag-and-drop ListView drop-in replacement http://github.com/commonsguy/cwac-touchist
I also have an implementation; found at https://github.com/bauerca/drag-sort-listview