Custom sort reordering isn't supported on mobile. But this is a feature I was waiting for soooo long. It helps really in prioritizing the tasks since other elements of task-prioritization are not available in Joplin.
Does anyone knows - is this feature planned at all for Joplin 3?
Thanks!
+1.
I'd love to enable custom sort on one of my notebooks. Not all notebooks, just this one. And then I could reorder notes from any device.
I mostly use Joplin on Android devices. A little bit on MacOS devices. Currently manual reordering is only possible on MacOS devices, which is a bummer. However I appreciate that the manual reordering is synced properly to Android devices, however it's not fully consistent, I sometimes see different order on two Android devices despite synchronisation.
+1
It would be very helpful. Thanks!
+1
would be wonderful indeed!
+1
without this feature todo lists on android are difficult.
todo lists are a large part of my use case.
as is constrains that to desktop. because it effectively forces setting up on desktop and then read only/checking off only on mobile which is not as useful.
often new todos on android are generally just kept in a single note/file/different software until one can get back to desktop. adding a lot of friction
Have you considered using inline task lists within a note? The mobile app has swap line up / swap line down options (which you can enable on the editor bar) to easily reorder inline lists of any kind. The desktop app has keyboard shortcuts to do the same as well
yes and thanks, appreciate the engagement. the new wsyiwig editor on mobile has opened up options. one could do that for a shopping list and it works well enough
but it does not work well for todo’s more than one liners e.g. have significant tied context
likely two uses cases here for todo's
am more interested at the moment with note lists, essentially complex todo’s. that can't easily be captured as a markdown one liner checklist. hypothetically, could create all the context and UI you need within a note creating a plugin, folding text, and front matter. but it still wouldn't work on mobile today.
since Joplin already has implemented Note Level ToDo's and Custom Sorted Order management of notes on mobile with iPhone and desktop; directionally that seems to be what the developers intend.
the gap seems to be that support is not available on android. which means Joplin in this case is effectively read and mark only today.
appreciate any other suggestions as well
You raise a good point there, I had not considered that this is likely the main use case of todo’s in Joplin
One potential alternative to make todo lists with extra details which are longer than one line (and is fully supported on mobile), would be to use inline markdown links, eg:
- [ ] Wash the car
- [ ] Fix the gate
- [ ] Do christmas shopping [*](#christmas-shopping)
### Christmas shopping
- Turkey
- Cranberry sauce
You can put detailed sections at the bottom of the note and then create a hyperlink to that section on the applicable checklist item. Alternatively you can include markdown links which point to other notes entirely (using the copy external link option in the menu on a note, available on mobile as well)
interesting idea
one liner todos generally have a strong theme or tight category. e.g. one's shopping trip.
but a folder of note level todos are often loosely related perhaps over a span time. they can have varying styles, amount of content, and in some cases are multi-user e.g. trip or event planning
a merged together 'master' note would have frictions ranging from topic focus, markdown style (different starting and ending heading depths, indentation style, list deliminators, etc.), even syncing conflicts
in the simplest short details, highly consistent styling, single user use case; just the friction of maintaining (creating and incrementally deleting) say 20-100 hyperlinked set's of details is not trivial.
however, Joplin does support custom sort order on desktop and iPhone. and it’s just missing on Android. this feels more like a “give Joplin time” to complete seemingly intended features across platforms. and similarly for users to provide signal for what we find most important.
in the meantime, users are probably better off using title prefix tricks to order their notes; which is admittedly visually poor but far less effort.
@lightzoo I understand your frustration - it does feel like a feature which should have been added by now. I’ve made quite a lot of contributions to the Joplin codebase (as a volunteer) and I did look into how this could be implemented after seeing this thread, but I think it’s a bigger task than I’m willing to put in the effort for. I’ve already got 17 Joplin PR’s in review and they’ve been creating a lot of extra work at the review stage.
Joplin does support custom sort order on desktop and iPhone.
How is this supported on iPhone? There shouldn’t be support on iPhone if it’s not supported on Android.
For anyone that is interested to contribute a code change for this, here are some details of my analysis:
thank you for your work on Joplin 
and appreciate the notes/thoughts
would suggest that since Joplin seems to be making a move towards better accessibility (via their blog) it might be better to not do drag and drop first or at all. it’s not very accessible without fallback
as you mentioned, when you long press a note that opens the “actions on notes bar” mode and allows note multiselect. in that mode the second item on the bar after the back arrow is a dropdown. currently it is only for moving items to a different notebook. it seems consistent that you could add moving it within the same notebook.
perhaps something as simple as
relabel “Move to notebook..” to “Move.. ”. it’s for consistency as all the drop down items would now be some move action. this removes the need for more library dependencies. it perhaps makes a cleaner path to implement and for fallback even if drag and drop is eventually wanted.
as a bonus “Move to notebook..” currently is clipped on Android with larger accessible fonts. Shortening it to “Move..” would improve that
That’s true, we should be adding functionality prioritising accessibility over consistency with the desktop app. It should remove the need to add a new library as well, if not implementing drag and drop at least for an initial implementation.
Regarding what you were describing for an implementation, I guess extending the header vertically may be an option, but it might be harder to implement because you would need to manage how deal with the move up and down buttons when multiple items are selected. I googled ‘accessible way to rearrange list items on mobile’ and this was the first hit, which is in line with my first thought for a more accessible approach:
https://medium.com/microsoft-mobile-engineering/accessible-reordering-for-touch-devices-e7f7a7ef404
EDIT: I think your idea could work too though, but I’m not sure how easily the header bar could be made to spread across 2 or 3 lines, or whether that is desirable. If “Move to notebook..” is changed to “Move.. ” you could potentially put the up and down buttons on the same row, and just make sure those buttons are hidden when expanding the dropdown (as is currently done with the other buttons to the right of it). That solution would cater for moving multiple rows in one go, but the logic for whether or not the up / down button should be disabled or not (depending on whether it is permissible move) would need to be a bit more complicated, though should be perfectly doable.
after the first item which is “Move to notebook..” which acts as a cancel button
Regarding that point, I didn’t understand the need for it. There is already a back button to the left of “Move to notebook…” which is a cancel button
not suggesting changing the header but am suggesting as a possibility only integrating move into the dropdown.
your reordering image I think would be more ideal. e.g. note list goes into a reorder mode.
but was looking for least effort but still reasonable approach. below are some screenshots to help clarify that approach
Ok, I see. To be honest integrating move into the dropdown would probably be quite difficult to get it to work. On second thoughts I think that adding a new option to the filter menu where custom sort is set, would be the easiest option (maybe add a separator before the new option as well):
A new option could be added to the bottom, something like ‘Re-arrange notes’ which would make the up and down buttons appear on each note, and can be exited with a back button in the header. I think this would be easier because when in long press mode, the multiselect kind of conflicts with the behaviour and usability
your idea of using the ‘filter menu’ (sorting menu) instead of the Move To dropdown is better. I like it
@_vg This feature already existed on the desktop app (but the setting is saved in the client side, not server side). This will now be supported in the client side on the mobile app as well in Joplin 3.6. See Mobile: Add ability to set per notebook sorting on mobile by mrjo118 · Pull Request #14562 · laurent22/joplin · GitHub
Regarding the custom sorting on the mobile app, I have now come up with a working solution for this and created PR Mobile: Implement a re-arrange notes screen, available when custom sorting is enabled by mrjo118 · Pull Request #14610 · laurent22/joplin · GitHub
