Title: Sorting retrieved data
Last modified: August 21, 2016

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# Sorting retrieved data

 *  Resolved [Tommy Walker](https://wordpress.org/support/users/acornflyer/)
 * (@acornflyer)
 * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/)
 * I have a table that contains various types of food. The third column contains
   the name of the type of food eg: Crème Brulee or Mayonnaise, whilst the second
   column contains the category eg: Cakes or Dairy.
 * The table has a drop down menu that allows the user to choose to display 10, 
   25, 50 or 100 entries.
 * How can I add a second drop down menu that allows the user to display only foods
   from a certain category ie: a drop down that offers Cakes, Dairy, Fruit, Ice-
   Cream as possible selections?
 * Choosing one of these options should return only the rows that contain foods 
   belonging to this category.
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress/)

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Tobias Bäthge](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tobiasbg/)
 * (@tobiasbg)
 * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/#post-4884964)
 * Hi,
 * thanks for your question, and sorry for the trouble.
 * For that, you can use the TablePress Extension from [http://tablepress.org/extensions/datatables-columnfilterwidgets/](http://tablepress.org/extensions/datatables-columnfilterwidgets/)
 * Regards,
    Tobias
 *  Thread Starter [Tommy Walker](https://wordpress.org/support/users/acornflyer/)
 * (@acornflyer)
 * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/#post-4884965)
 * I didn’t know about this extension – thank you for pointing it out. I’ll install
   and test it and hopefully that will allow this topic to be marked as resolved.
 * Thank you very much for the quick reply, it’s much appreciated.
 *  Thread Starter [Tommy Walker](https://wordpress.org/support/users/acornflyer/)
 * (@acornflyer)
 * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/#post-4884986)
 * The extension is _almost_ perfect…
 * Once a selection has been made from the dropdown eg: ‘Cakes’, for some of my 
   users, they wouldn’t understand how to clear the selection and reset the menu
   ie: by clicking on the selected category which is displayed under the dropdown.
 * I would like to be able to add some simple instruction text underneath the dropdowns
   to explain to the user how to use the option menus.
 * How would I do this?
 *  Plugin Author [Tobias Bäthge](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tobiasbg/)
 * (@tobiasbg)
 * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/#post-4884989)
 * Hi,
 * good to hear that this helps!
    Adding some text below the drop downs is not really
   possible, as everything is initialized via JavaScript, and therefore the JS code
   of the Extension would have to be changed. I therefore suggest to simply put 
   the text before the drop downs (by simply typing it in before the `[table]` Shortcode
   when editing the page).
 * Regards,
    Tobias
 *  Thread Starter [Tommy Walker](https://wordpress.org/support/users/acornflyer/)
 * (@acornflyer)
 * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/#post-4884994)
 * OK, thanks.
 * One more question… I am also using the ‘datatables_tabletools’ extension to provide
   Print, PDF and Export functionality. Using the 2 extensions together places the
   row of Tabletools Icons above the Dropdown Option Menus.
 * Is there a way to change this order, so that the icons appear after the dropdowns?
 *  Plugin Author [Tobias Bäthge](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tobiasbg/)
 * (@tobiasbg)
 * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/#post-4885000)
 * Hi,
 * unfortunately, there’s no nice way to do this at the moment. This might however
   be possible in a future version of the Extension, as I have seen some recent 
   development activity for an enhancement like this in the actual JS code of the
   TableTools library.
    Unfortunately, I can’t give an estimate on when this will
   be available, yet. Sorry.
 * However, my personal feeling tells me that positioning the TableTools icons above
   the dropdowns should be a better user experience.
 * Regards,
    Tobias
 *  Thread Starter [Tommy Walker](https://wordpress.org/support/users/acornflyer/)
 * (@acornflyer)
 * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/#post-4885005)
 * OK. Once again, thank you for your quick and helpful replies.
 *  Plugin Author [Tobias Bäthge](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tobiasbg/)
 * (@tobiasbg)
 * [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/#post-4885014)
 * Hi,
 * no problem, you are very welcome! 🙂 Good to hear that this helped!
 * Best wishes,
    Tobias
 * P.S.: In case you haven’t, please [rate TablePress](http://wordpress.org/support/view/plugin-reviews/tablepress)
   here in the plugin directory. Thanks!

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

The topic ‘Sorting retrieved data’ is closed to new replies.

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## Tags

 * [selections](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/selections/)
 * [sorting](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/sorting/)

 * 8 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Tobias Bäthge](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tobiasbg/)
 * Last activity: [12 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/sorting-retrieved-data/#post-4885014)
 * Status: resolved