Add the option to customize the order of field types in field type groups

Created on 24 May 2025, about 2 months ago

Problem/Motivation

This issue is a followup for 📌 [PP1] Refine field descriptions Active . It was raised during todays ux meeting 📌 Drupal Usability Meeting 2025-05-23 Active . The attendees were @benjifisher, @rkoller, and @simohell. 📌 Drupal Usability Meeting 2025-05-23 Active is about refining the labels and descriptions used within the workflow for creating a new field. Some field types are grouped and displayed on the second step of the multi-step form within a dialog modal. If we compare the current field type labels within the formatted text group with the current draft in their particular display order:

... you notice that the Before version is in an alphabetically as well as logical order, going from simple to more complex formatted field types. The After version of the current draft is also in an alphabetical sort order, but that sort order, due to rewording, is not in a logical order anymore. But simply changing the order in a fixed manner might not work in every scenario, if you have a small number of module like with the standard install it would work, but if you have several contrib modules adding field types, that list becomes lengthy and in that case an alphabetical order

Steps to reproduce

Proposed resolution

We haven't completely thought it through, but the initial idea/suggestion was to provide an option to customize the order of the field types, maybe based on certain constraints; for example if there are more than x number of field types then use an alphabetical order otherwise use a predefined one.

Remaining tasks

User interface changes

Introduced terminology

API changes

Data model changes

Release notes snippet

Feature request
Status

Active

Version

11.0 🔥

Component

field system

Created by

🇩🇪Germany rkoller Nürnberg, Germany

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  • Usability

    Makes Drupal easier to use. Preferred over UX, D7UX, etc.

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Comments & Activities

  • Issue created by @rkoller
  • 🇩🇪Germany rkoller Nürnberg, Germany
  • 🇩🇪Germany rkoller Nürnberg, Germany

    And forgot to postpone the issue on 📌 [PP1] Refine field descriptions Active

  • 🇬🇧United Kingdom Emma Horrell

    Following up on a suggestion to do user testing on this. To design a test I would need to know:
    • Type of Drupal user likely to use this functionality (and therefore impacted by a change to the interface)
    • Typical scenario in which the user would encounter this interface (e.g. when would they need/want to change the order of fields types in field type groups?)
    • Desirable outcome from the scenario and problem the change in interface has addressed (e.g. we want to ensure the Drupal user can distinguish between the field types and field groups because not being able to do so would result in [what are the tangible negative consequences of the problem not being addressed])
    Reviewing the comments above it seems @rkoller has gained input on target Drupal users the changes would impact so I am not sure if further testing is still required? and if so which unresolved questions this would seek to address?

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