feat: implement column sorting #1622

scottdover · 2025-08-29T19:16:12Z

Summary:
This updates the data viewer code to support sorting columns.

On the backend, this is supported by passing a new sortModel to our getRows function. ITC
connections support this by creating an order by statement, but REST connections are a bit more
complicated. With a non-empty sort model, the general process for REST is to:

Create a sorted view
Query that view and get results
Delete the view

This is consistent with how studio sorts data.

On the front-end, a ColumnMenu has been introduced to facilitate adding and removing sorting
criteria.

Last, these changes required exposing l10n messages to the ColumnMenu component. To do this, a
few changes were made to WebView:

WebView is now responsible for rendering it's content
WebView.render makes use of some new class methods to generate content:
- body: returns the html that should show up in the <body> section of a webview
- scripts (optional): An array of relative script sources to load for the webview
- styles (optional): An array of relative style sources to load for the webview
- l10nMessages (optional): A map of l10n translation messages to expose to React
  (NOTE: These messages can be read using the new localize helper)

The changes to WebView should make future webview panels work in a more consistent way.

Testing:

scottdover · 2025-08-29T19:33:57Z

Hey @scnwwu @smorrisj

I feel like the answer to this is obvious, but can we assume everyone with a REST connection has access to studio? And, is there a reason we shouldn't use a studio session for api calls/etc in the extension?

I'm looking into column sorting, and DataAccessApi.getRows doesn't provide a way to provide sorting information.

However, you can provide sorting data for one or more column in studio like this:

curl 'https://{studioUrl}/studio/sessions/{sessionId}/data/libraries/{library}/tables/{table}rows?start=0&limit=100&applyFormats=true&formatMissingValues=true' \
--data-raw '{
  "distinct": false,
  "filter": "",
  "sorts": [
    { "columnName": "COLUMN_TO_SORT", "sortOrder": "descending", "sortPriority": 0 }
  ]
}' \

This API call is what is used by the data viewer in studio.

Is there a reason we shouldn't use this?

scnwwu · 2025-08-30T14:08:44Z

Workbench goes through REST but no studio

scnwwu · 2025-08-30T14:20:49Z

Looks like getRowSet supports a sortBy, will it work?
https://developer.sas.com/rest-apis/compute/getRowSet

smorrisj · 2025-09-22T23:13:14Z

Looks like getRowSet supports a sortBy, will it work? https://developer.sas.com/rest-apis/compute/getRowSet

Agreed. We should use the sorting features available via compute/platform microservices where possible IMO.

scottdover · 2025-10-20T18:19:38Z

Hey @kpatl1. I mentioned this in Teams, but wanted to get your thoughts on the changes to the WebView class when you get some time. My hope is that your changes in #1631 can get merged and I'll update things to work with the WebView changes (and maybe add a properties context menu item time permitting)

client/src/panels/WebviewManager.ts

kpatl1 · 2025-10-20T19:57:37Z

I have also gone in and addressed comments in #1631 so hopefully that should be able to be merged soon

client/src/connection/itc/script.ts

client/src/webview/useDataViewer.ts

client/src/webview/ColumnHeader.tsx

client/src/webview/localize.ts

scnwwu · 2025-10-21T09:00:16Z

suggest to change the PR title to be feat: ...

scnwwu · 2025-10-21T10:07:26Z

client/src/connection/rest/RestLibraryAdapter.ts


    return {
      rows: data.items,
      count: data.count,


When I tried it, there seems a problem. When get from a view, the count is undefined, thus the scrollbar doesn't show enough space.

Ohh, good catch. I noticed there was some weirdness around loading larger tables while sorting, but thought it was mainly due to the fact that sorting took marginally longer than just displaying the table. Will take a look.

This was resolved in 2a16789. This doesn't quite fix the issue with count being undefined...there wasn't a straightforward way to find that as it isn't returned by a view or by the createView statement.

However, this does resolve the issue enough (imo) as it stops us from indefinitely trying to load more data by inferring the total count.

So the user experience will be inconsistent. When I open a table (no sorting initially), I can see the scrollbar as if all rows are there. I can drag the scrollbar to a position and see empty cells and I know the content is being loaded. And later the content filled in.
Now when I add a sort, the scrollbar will change to like there're only 100 rows. When I scroll to the bottom, it's not obvious if it's really at end or loading.
It would be great if we can provide the count to ag grid. When the table opened initially, no sorting applied, we should already get the count. Can we cache the count?

Yeah, I'd rather it not be inconsistent, either. I did consider caching things. That would fix the issue temporarily. However, once we incorporate filtering, I think we're going to run into the same issue and will have to manage this cache differently. Fwiw, it looks like scrollbars also get a little inconsistent in studio when we're applying both a sort and filter.

I'm inclined to not address this one until a user complains, unless @snlwih thinks it is worth exploring further before releasing?

client/src/connection/itc/script.ts

scottdover · 2025-10-22T17:39:06Z

Hey @scnwwu @smorrisj @danila-grobov . I'm wondering if any of you have guidance on how to proceed with the formatting issues? The actual sorting isn't the issue, but if I execute SELECT * FROM SASHELP.AIR I get improperly formatted results.

I thought I could correct the issue by applying formats in the query like...

SELECT
   AIR,
   DATE FORMAT=MONYY.
FROM SASHELP.AIR

However, that returns improperly formatted results as well.

Fwiw, I originally planned to use RecordSet.Sort to sort our results. However, that gave me the following error:

Current provider does not support the necessary interfaces for sorting or filtering

scnwwu · 2025-10-23T05:59:05Z

It looks like the "SAS Formats" only works well with adCmdTableDirect (what main branch is doing).
I guess an easy way is to do similar like Viya.

$this.dataConnection.Execute("create view work.test as select * from sashelp.air order by air asc")
$objRecordSet = New-Object -comobject ADODB.Recordset
$objRecordSet.ActiveConnection = $this.dataConnection # This is needed to set the properties for sas formats.
$objRecordSet.Properties.Item("SAS Formats").Value = "_ALL_"
$objRecordSet.Open(
      "work.test",
      [System.Reflection.Missing]::Value, # Use the active connection
      2,  # adOpenDynamic
      1,  # adLockReadOnly
      512 # adCmdTableDirect
)
$this.dataConnection.Execute("drop view work.test")

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

- move useDataViewer - improve keyboard accessibility - improve localize Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

scottdover force-pushed the feat/table-sort branch from 38c03da to 24e55aa Compare September 23, 2025 13:05

scottdover force-pushed the feat/table-sort branch 9 times, most recently from 65f8813 to 5457e6a Compare October 20, 2025 17:38

scottdover marked this pull request as ready for review October 20, 2025 18:18

scottdover requested review from kpatl1, scnwwu and smorrisj October 20, 2025 18:18

scottdover changed the title ~~chore(wip): implement table sorting~~ chore: implement column sorting Oct 20, 2025

scottdover added this to the 1.18.0 milestone Oct 20, 2025

kpatl1 reviewed Oct 20, 2025

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scnwwu reviewed Oct 21, 2025

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scnwwu reviewed Oct 21, 2025

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scottdover changed the title ~~chore: implement column sorting~~ feat: implement column sorting Oct 21, 2025

dahils added the testing-complete Complete the pull requests testing label Nov 17, 2025

dahils self-requested a review November 17, 2025 15:49

dahils approved these changes Nov 17, 2025

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Scott Dover added 24 commits November 17, 2025 11:25

chore: pass sortModel to backend

122649a

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: implement sort for rest

74fec31

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: experiment with using native ag grid html/css

1988dda

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: finish sorting for rest

3f0edcd

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

wip: fix menu float positions

302f23d

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: apply sort to itc connections

72029f7

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: use sortIndex for column sorting

4868234

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: finish up menu positioning

e3a56d4

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: add copyright

9f03d1f

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: scroll to top on sort

a879d47

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: prep for code review

7433b60

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: load translations statically

3c997a4

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: generalize webviewHtml creation

b81af92

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: dismiss menu when window focus lost

d0c15d8

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

fix: respond to code review

bb3c570

- move useDataViewer - improve keyboard accessibility - improve localize Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: update table properties viewer/hook into data viewer

0cce0eb

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: infer count when return < 100 results

fef3904

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

fix: fix formatting for itc/validate sort

58011c0

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: respond to code review

1b4e87f

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: move translation location

b8c231d

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: update changelog/docs

b131330

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: fix dnd/menu alignment issue

3765cdd

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: persist column sort criteria

2754fa4

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

chore: tweak styles

9f88adc

Signed-off-by: Scott Dover <[email protected]>

scottdover force-pushed the feat/table-sort branch from 3a8e612 to 9f88adc Compare November 17, 2025 16:25

scottdover merged commit 9b3945f into main Nov 17, 2025
2 checks passed

scottdover deleted the feat/table-sort branch November 17, 2025 18:27

feat: implement column sorting #1622

feat: implement column sorting #1622

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