[FX.php List] (slightly off-topic) advice needed for intuitive way to sort categories and items within categories

[Alex Gates]

Hi everyone-

I'm creating a system that will allow users to build a cookbook online.
One of the issues I am struggling with is an intuitive way for the user
to create the sort order for the recipe categories and the recipes in
each category.

For example:

Appetizers (category name)
---------- 
Onion Rings (recipe title)
BBQ chicken (recipe title)
Spinach Dip (recipe title)
Etc.

Main Dishes (category name)
-----------
Chicken Pizza (recipe title)
Spaghetti and Meatballs (recipe title)
Chicken Marsala (recipe title)
Etc.


I'm assuming an average of 8 categories and somewhere around 40 recipes
per category.

I'd like it to be very easy for the user to create categories, sort the
order that the categories will be listed in the book, and sort the order
that the recipes will be listed in each category.
These "sort numbers" will need to end up in FileMaker -
So on my categories layout, I will have one record for each category -
and a "sort order in book" field for the category.  
On the recipes layout, I will have one record for each recipe and a
"sort order in category" field for the recipe.

The most "user friendly" way would probably be to allow the user to drag
and drop.
This page: http://www.gregphoto.net/sortable/advanced/ shows something
that would be incredibly nice - but I'm not sure how much time it would
(should) take to become functional with fx.php - (have a peek at the
source).

I wouldn't have any problem getting the data to display, but nothing
comes to mind right off the top of my head on how to do a "submit" and
loop through all these records and change the "sort number."

So - I'd welcome any suggestions from anyone here as to how you'd go
about accomplishing something like this.  I suppose I could always have
another form field on the page called "sort order" and have a dropdown
choice or something, but that doesn't seem nearly as intuitive as simply
dragging and dropping. 

Any ideas/comments/criticism would be greatly appreciated.  In the mean
time, I will mess around with this drag and drop a little more...

Thanks!

Alex



-----Original Message-----
From: fx.php_list-bounces at mail.iviking.org
[mailto:fx.php_list-bounces at mail.iviking.org] On Behalf Of Gjermund
Gusland Thorsen
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 4:38 AM
To: adenman at tmea.org; FX.php Discussion List
Subject: Re: [FX.php List] CSS WYSIWYG Editors

Did anyone here try CSS Edit( http://macrabbit.com/ )??? I think it's
the best CSS design tool yet.

I also tried Xyle Scope( http://www.culturedcode.com/ ) but I find
Xyle Scope to be an analyzis tool and not a design tool.
There is also a pretty nice analyzis addon for FireFox called web
developer.

ggt667
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