Question

Best way to allow the User to define a Table’s Order?

We are using SQL Server 2005 and DevExpress controls.

We have a table that contains the following:

1. Process A
2. Process B
3. Process C
4. Report A
5. Report B
6. Report C

We want to allow the user to change the order to anything they want.

Here is one example:

1. Process C
2. Process A
3. Process B
4. Report B
5. Report A
6. Report C

To accommodate this we added a DisplayOrder (INT) field to the table that is maintainted by the our application.

Is using an INT field the best solution for a user defined order?

Are there any other methods to accomplish this?

The reason, I am asking, is in our current application it takes about 1 second to move a row down (or up). I am about to crack open the code to see why it is taking so long and if you Stack Overflow gurus have any good ideas, I might implement them at that time.

If you are curious, here is how I believe our application allows editing of the DisplayOrder:

1. Load the table into a GridView
2. Select a row
3. Clicking a Move Down button (there is also a Move Up button)
4. The Click Event will swap DisplayOrder of the current row with the row underneath it.
5. The change, to both of the records, are written back to the database
6. This takes about 1 second per click (i.e. 10 clicks equal 10 seconds)

Answer 1

Could it be taking 1 second per exchange because you are updating the DB with each click? Maybe even reselecting the data again too?

Why not select the data into local objects. Bind to those objects in the grid. When you move the objects up and down adjust their display order property. Then only do an update to the DB

1. When the user finally clicks Save.
2. If any of the values of the object have changed.