This is the challenge that I gave myself recently. I wanted to keep track of my own list of favorite movies and be able to easily sort that list and add to it at any time. If you're already in the Notes frame of mind, you're beginning to realize that there is really only one way to sort information like this: assign a numeric value to each of the items and then begin a-rankin'.

The problem with just going off and ranking the items is that you really don't have an easy way of keeping everything in order. Once you populate all the numbers, say from 1 to 25, you then run into the problem of trying to easily re-sort the list. Every change you make to one document's sort number requires you change another document's sort number. You could just manually change the sort number on each of the forms until everything was ordered just right. Of course, if that option appeals to you, you might as well just invite all the folks over for a barn-raising because you're officially Amish, my friend.

This was definitely a job for LotusScript.

A Simple Plan
The basic concept is simple. First, on each of the documents you want to sort, you should create a numeric field called Sort_Number and, if you want to sort documents within a category, an optional text field called Sort_Category. If you want to move a document up, for instance, you need to reduce the existing sort number by one, say from 3 to 2. Then you need to find any document that has the same sort number as the changed document and increase it by one, say from 2 to 3. Basically, you're switching the sort numbers of two documents.

You may be wondering why we're numerically sorting documents in this fashion? The simple answer is that this is useful if items require subjective ranking. Not everything has an obvious field by which to sort it. Take, for instance, a collection of documents that contain pictures of your company's party. You want people to be able to scroll through a view that displays all of these pictures in a Domino view. The best way to order these pictures would be to assign a sort number to each and then rank them amongst themselves until it pleases you. This is an ideal example of the type of sorting I outline in this article.