Consistent Default Sort Order for Ref Column Dropdowns Across Mobile and Desktop Previews

[Akihisa_Ishino]

Description of the Problem/Current Behavior: Currently, the default display order of items in a dropdown list for a Ref type column can be inconsistent between the desktop preview and the mobile preview/mobile app.

• In the desktop preview, the dropdown items often (but not always) appear to follow the order of the data in the source table (e.g., the row order in a Google Sheet) or the key column order.
• In the mobile preview (and often in the deployed mobile app), the default order of these same dropdown items can appear arbitrary or "mixed up." This order is not consistently the source data order nor the key column order, but it is typically reproducible, suggesting an internal AppSheet sorting mechanism that differs from the desktop preview's default.

This discrepancy requires app developers to explicitly implement sorting logic (e.g., using ORDERBY()) even for basic, predictable ordering, simply to achieve consistency between preview environments and the actual mobile app.

Desired Behavior/Proposed Feature: I request that AppSheet provide a consistent default sort order for items in Ref column dropdowns across all client environments (desktop browser preview, mobile preview, and deployed mobile apps) without requiring an explicit ORDERBY() expression in Valid If or Suggested Values.

Ideally, this default order should be predictable and align with one of the following, applied uniformly:

1. The order of records in the referenced data source.
2. The order of the key column of the referenced table.

The key is consistency by default, so developers only need to use ORDERBY() for specific, non-default sorting requirements, not for achieving basic platform consistency.

Why this is important/Benefits:

• Improved Developer Efficiency: Reduces the need for developers to manually add ORDERBY() expressions to every Ref column simply to ensure a standard, predictable order that is consistent between development/preview and deployment.
• Enhanced User Experience (UX) Consistency: Provides a more predictable and reliable user experience, as dropdowns will behave the same way regardless of whether the user is interacting with a desktop view or a mobile view.
• Reduced Confusion: Eliminates confusion for both developers (during testing) and end-users when seeing different orderings on different platforms for the same data.
• Better "Out-of-the-Box" Experience: A consistent default behavior would make AppSheet apps feel more polished and reliable from the outset without extra configuration.

Current Workaround (and its limitations): The current workaround, as recommended by support, is to use the ORDERBY() expression within the Valid If or Suggested Values property of the Ref column. While this provides control, it feels like a patch for what should be consistent default behavior. Forcing developers to implement this for every Ref column to achieve basic consistency adds unnecessary development overhead.

In summary: While ORDERBY() is a powerful tool for custom sorting, the default behavior for Ref dropdowns should be consistent across platforms. This change would streamline development and improve the overall consistency and predictability of AppSheet applications.

[a_aleinikov]

Hi @Akihisa_Ishino ,

Great point — you’ve clearly described a real issue.

✔ Yes, currently AppSheet handles dropdown (Ref) sort order inconsistently across desktop and mobile, often requiring ORDERBY() even when no special sorting is needed.

✔ Your suggestion — for the platform to provide a consistent, predictable default sort (based on source row order or key order) across all environments — makes sense and would save developers time and reduce confusion.

I recommend you formally submit this as a feature request via AppSheet Support or the Idea Exchange, as it could improve both developer efficiency and user experience.

[AppliSuite]

I wholeheartedly support @Akihisa_Ishino  's proposal regarding the inconsistent behavior of dropdown lists for Ref type columns between desktop and mobile environments.

This inconsistency is not merely inconvenient - it consistently creates confusion for App Creators during the development and testing process. While the suggested workaround of using ORDERBY() functions does technically resolve the issue, it introduces several problems:

1. It significantly reduces development efficiency by requiring additional expressions for what should be default, consistent behavior
2. It narrows our options for future functional enhancements by consuming the Valid If or Suggested Values properties that might otherwise be used for actual business logic
3. It potentially impacts application performance by adding unnecessary processing overhead to every dropdown

In my opinion, this inconsistency should be classified as a bug rather than a feature request. The platform should provide consistent behavior across all environments by default. 

I urge the development team to address this issue as a bug fix with high priority.