Sorting of users

[KB7777]

It would be great to have sorting users feature by the last login date or quota set. LDAP users either :)

Regards.

[MorrisJobke]

cc @blizzz @jancborchardt

[MorrisJobke]

ref #117

[jancborchardt]

Yup, should be possible to sort by the headers where it makes sense. For those two columns for sure. :)

@blizzz @icewind1991

[blizzz]

TL;DR: The only valid approach to this is to Client-side sorting in Javascript, with the disadvantage that you do not have complete results, only that what you already see. If this is good enough, should not be much of a problem.

Long story

How its describes is also how sorting in Files work. With the difference that all files are retrieved in background. Which is not possible for users (too many, far too slow).

In general, you can pick between two approaches:

Client side sorting

Advantage: fast, no server interaction

Disadvantage: may be incomplete, sorts only the rows that are present

Server side sorting

Background: for the provided cols, looking at preferences table is sufficient (needs to ask user backends for meta data still).

Advantage: If trying hard enough, you get a complete picture…

Disadvantage: requires server interaction → slow. Won't retrieve users without rows set, (unless you ask user backends first for all! users – no-go on big instances). Even slower (must match results from preferences table and user backends), and most likely breaks paging, is the combination with a search filter (you will have gaps and never know whether there are more users to retrieve).

[alexanderdd]

From what I read, I think it should be server side, so it also works for big instances (including LDAP).

It's better to have a feature that works for all instances, including big ones, instead of having a feature (client side sorting) that only works well on small instances where only the rows that you already see are sorted.

Background: Sorting by last login is an important feature for admins, especially looking at those that never logged in, cause you might wanna delete them/contact them.

[alexanderdd]

Please implement this feature.

I just wanted to remove old users from my intance and can still not sort by last login date, Nextcloud 23.0.8

@skjnldsv @MorrisJobke ? Or who should I tag?

[jospoortvliet]

Hi @alexanderdd,
pinging people is sadly not really what gets it implemented ;-)

Somebody doing it in their free time is, or somebody getting paid to do it. Looking at Arthur's input, it is probably a fair bit of work that comes with downsides on the server performance, so extra work might be needed to avoid that before it could go in. This doesn't sound to me like a feature a volunteer would work on as it's not really a home user thing, so your best bet is probably to either pay somebody or do it yourself.

Either way, please avoid bothering people about it - that's just not polite and certainly doesn't create a motivation to help. There are thousands of other things that need doing I'm afraid and most of those have far more than 8 👍🏻 and user impact.

I hope this'll work out for you.

[joshtrichards]

Related PR: #45245

[Pytal]

A separate "Recently active" section has been added which sorts users by last login: #45716

If sorting by a different field is desired feel free to open a new issue :)

[alexanderdd]

@Pytal thank you for working on this! In a 29.0.3 test install, I see the Last login column, but there is no way to sort ascending/descending... did I miss something? Or will it come in NC 30?

(I only have two users on that instance, does sorting only work when there are many users? On another 28.0.7 install with many users, there is no sorting)

[joshtrichards]

@alexanderdd It's a new feature so it'll only make it into upcoming majors. Only bug fixes get backported. :)

[Pytal]

@Pytal thank you for working on this! In a 29.0.3 test install, I see the Last login column, but there is no way to sort ascending/descending... did I miss something? Or will it come in NC 30?

You're welcome :)

As said this is only for NC30 and is actually a separate section see:

[alexanderdd]

But then it does not close this issue here, because it asks for "sorting users feature by the last login date or quota set", I think what is asked (and what I also find useful) is that in the regular "all accounts" section, you click on one of the headers of a table column, and it sorts the users by that column, e.g. last login date, quota, language, ... It should be server side sorting (see discussion above).

I think I will reopen this issue, unless you protest?!

[Pytal]

Due to technical limitations with e.g. LDAP it was concluded that having last login sort in a separate section rather than the header buttons is the best and cleanest way

For other fields it may be feasible. Feel free to open a separate issue for those!