folder list should sort special characters (like @ or !) according to their ascii-order

[schneeland]

In desktop email clients the sorting order of the folder list follows the ascii-order, which allows the user to deliberately push folders to the top by adding an @- or !-prefix to their regular name. (for example when implementing Getting Things Done, the user can put folders like @Action or @WaitingFor? at the top of their folder list).

Roundcube however ignores the special characters and lists the corresponding folders at a place according to their name without prefix.

It would be nice, if the sorting order could be fixed.

[schneeland]

Personal folder list exemplifying the problem

[alec]

The list is sorted according to locale and it's good because folder name could start with national character.

[schneeland]

Hi alec,

sorry for the imprecise wording. The locale on my server is de_DE.UTF-8. And according to ​http://www.utf8-zeichentabelle.de/ the @-character comes before any alpha-character. Furthermore, if I use the following php code

<?php

$folders = array("Posteingang",
    "Entwürfe", 
    "Gesendet",
    "Ablage",   
    "@Aufgaben",
    "Finanzen",
    "Überraschung",
    "Ähnlicher Text",
    "@Warten auf",
    "Werbung");

sort($folders,SORT_LOCALE_STRING);

foreach ($folders as $key => $val) {
    echo "folders[" . $key . "] = " . $val . "\n<br>\n";
}

?>

to test sorting on my server, the sorting order is as expected:

folders[0] = @Aufgaben
folders[1] = @Warten auf
folders[2] = Ablage
folders[3] = Entwürfe
folders[4] = Finanzen
folders[5] = Gesendet
folders[6] = Posteingang
folders[7] = Werbung
folders[8] = Ähnlicher Text
folders[9] = Überraschung 

Maybe you could point me to the file and function where folder sorting is done? It has been a good year since I last wrote PHP-code, but maybe I can try to track down that issue myself and if no change to the roundcube codebase is desired, just patch it on my server.

Best,
S.

[alec]

_sort_mailbox_list() in include/rcube_imap.php

[schneeland]

Thanks,

I changed the behaviour by resorting to

  asort($folders, SORT_STRING);

As using SORT_LOCALE_STRING also exhibits other oddities, I guess I will just file a bug against PHP.

Sorry for taking your time,
S.