This is a real quick show-and-tell of rawbytz’s “sortWF” tool for WorkFlowy. All you do is:
- Zoom into the list you want to sort
- Activate the sortWF bookmarklet
- Click on A-Z or Z-A … Voilà!
Let’s just say you’ve got a list of periodic table elements in WorkFlowy, sorted according to atomic number (or maybe a list of DVD’s – if those still exist)… and you would like to have them ordered alphabetically. Well, this is how easy it is:
You might also want to order the same list in reverse. Now in the following animated GIF, you’ll see that I have everything prefixed with a number (another rawbytz tool) so that when I sort Z-A, the list of elements retains its hierarchy according to atomic weight… but is now in reverse order:
You can visit rawbytz’s blog post for more details (including how to set this tool up as a script which you can activate by keyboard shortcut) and/ or you can grab the bookmarklet directly over here.
If you have (or have always wanted to have) any use cases where you sort by title, go ahead and tell us about it below 🙏
This is great! But why isn’t this part of the standard WF features after 5 years?
I wanted to identify duplicate entries in a long list. Sorting them A-Z put the duplicates together for easy finding and deleting. Many thanks!
it’s not working in Chrome Version 70.0.3538.102 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Short answer: Go here and install the latest version
https://rawbytz.blogspot.com/p/sorting-bookmarklet-for-workflowy.html
Long answer: the WorkFlowy API is under active development and some of these bookmarklets contain deprecated code… or code that is being retired, and replaced with the new API calls. I try to update these as that happens.
Unfortunately, I have no way of automatically updating a static bookmarklet sitting in your bookmarks bar. So it’s on you to update. You can also click on the “more information” link, and view “Version notes”. If the latest version isn’t working, don’t hesitate to contact me at rawbytz@gmail.com. Thx.
it works again, thank you very much indeed!
Thanks rawbytz. I found a use for sort WorkFlowy. I have a main list called Tags and then sublist under them that are easier to find if they are sorted alphabetically. I have used tag index in the past but I like the idea of being able to collapse the whole list.
Assume I have a list of 100 items to sort A-Z but each item also has several sub items. Will this just sort the top level, and all sub items will be untouched and (of course) stay nested properly? Looks like a handy tool!
Hi Blaine,
Exactly as you described. Only the top-level lists are sorted, no matter whether they are expanded or collapsed.
I’m trying to drag it into my bookmarks bar but it isn’t working! Am I missing something? I love this!
Archie, browser version, and OS? I had one other report with Chrome 69/Mac OS. In that case, they were getting the green “plus” when dragging, but the bookmarklet wouldn’t “drop”. The following manual install method works in Chrome/Windows, but I don’t know if it works on Mac:
• right click the bookmarklet link > copy link address
• right click on the bookmarks bar > Paste
• If that works (hopefully) go ahead and test it in WorkFlowy.
• then right click on the new bookmark > edit > Name
Thanks for answering my question about what the Sorting could be used for. It would be nice to have additional examples.
If you’ve ever had a distinct feeling that you’d like to sort a list by title… then that’s your use case :-).