Windows vs Linux: Descending sequence is a down arrow in Windows (yay!) but an upward arrow under Linux.
When I wish to sort my email messages into descending sequence by, say, "Date" I click on the "Date" column heading. Under Windows, I click the column heading until the little arrow graphic in the column heading points downward. Under Linux Thunderbird, however, I must click until the arrow points upward. I prefer a downward arrow to denote descending sequence. Can the Linux version of Thunderbird be changed/customized to match the Windows behavior?
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Screen Caps:
Have you ever worked out quite what "ascending" and "descending" mean? ;-)
How do these conventions compare in other contexts? Are Thunderbird's arrows consistent with usage elsewhere in Linux? (I say "Linux" but in fact it may depend on which distro/desktop/theme/file manager is in use.)
I use both Windows and Linux myself but I hadn't noticed any discrepancy. I consider these arrows to be rather meaningless. I just click until it's the way I want it, without paying much attention to the symbols in use.
Whatever the convention is, I want Thunderbird to be consistent with its environment. I don't care if different environments are not consistent with one another.
Q: "Have you ever worked out quite what "ascending" and "descending" mean?" A: Yes. I quite have.
And it appears that you're right about the arrow convention being environment-wide within Linux. Therefore my complaint is with Linux and not Thunderbird. Yet another irritation for me with the Penguin world.
Screen Grab: Libre Calc Sort options with arrows
Seems to me to be like scrolling. You can either scroll the document, or scroll the viewport. So "up" and "down" can work either way, depending on the scroll method.
For sorting, I think I'd feel a notation such as "A-Z" vs "Z-A" would be most intuitive. But arrows and those generalised "ascending" vs "descending" terms seem to me to be open to interpretation. If I sort in numerical order, 0-9, as I go down the list the numbers go up. Is that "ascending" or "descending"? And which arrow is appropriate?
There are, seemingly, two possible targets for the labels "ascending" and "descending": 1) the sort sequence of the data values. 2) the direction in which values are presented upon the screen. My habit is to think of "ascending" and "descending" as relating primarily to the sort sequence of the values and my preference is for arrows to indicate same.
I imagine a spreadsheet in which data values exist in a few hundred cells of a single spreadsheet row. Sorting the values here would involve sorting the columns instead of the rows. The scrolling analogy does not apply in this case because the scroll will be either to the left or right rather than up or down. Yet sorting into ascending or descending sequence is still possible. "Ascending" and "Descending" can only relate to sort sequence here and not the on-screen presentation.
Sorting buttons in Microsoft Excel 2007 (under Windows) agree with your A-Z suggestion. Additionally, downward pointing arrows appear on both buttons as a directional cue reminding the user that sorted rows will always proceed from a fixed starting point (the top). The icons indicate both 1) sequence and 2) direction.
Not very proud of myself for devoting so much thought to arrows. Too late now...
Excel sort buttons/icons:
