TC7.03 Sort on custom column with substring of plugin value

[white]

Suppose you have a custom column like this:
[=tc.name:2]

Sorting on this column will sort on the whole name and not on the second character of the name.

[Hacker]

See also:
[Sugg] Sorting only according to shown values.

Roman

[ghisler(Author)]

I have considered this, but it would break the sorting by numeric values like size or date/time...

[Hacker]

Christian,
If you mean that it would sort on equal values, well, the same would happen if the values were really equal.

Roman

[white]

I have considered this, but it would break the sorting by numeric values like size or date/time...

When someone uses a sub string he in most cases wants to change the sort order. Maybe you can leave the sort order like it is now when field formatters are used, but change the sort order when a sub string is used.

It also makes sense considering a sub string of a number or date as a string instead of a number or date.

Another possibility is to give the user the possibility to supply a sort key. For example using the following syntax: [=pluginname.fieldname.unit|sort_key].
(Like it is done with categories in the wiki: [[Category:category_name|sort_key]])