Discourse has many lists you can reorder, such as sidebar links, user fields, flags and list settings. Each one used to work differently. Some had arrow buttons, some had a menu, and some could only be dragged.
We are replacing them with one shared control. Every row you can move gets the same handle:
- Drag the handle to move a row.
- Click the handle, or press Enter on it, to open a menu. It offers the moves that row can make: to the top, up, down, or to the bottom.
- Use the keyboard. The arrow keys walk between rows. With the handle focused, Alt (Option on a Mac) with ↑, ↓, Home or End moves the row, and the menu shows these shortcuts.
- Screen readers announce each move, for example “Moved Location to position 2 of 5”.
Where you will see it
- List site settings: value lists, simple lists, URL lists and emoji lists
- The redesigned admin dashboard: the Configure menu, Manage reports and Compare groups
- Flags, user fields, the options of a dropdown user field, and badge groupings
- The manifest screenshots list in the logo settings
- The column editor on the user directory
- The links in the sidebar section form
Some lists are not covered yet, such as reordering categories.
How to try it
- Go to Admin → Upcoming changes at
/admin/config/upcoming-changes - Find Enable new reordering controls and choose who gets it
You can turn it off again from the same place. The old controls are still there and nothing is migrated.
Worth knowing
- In a list setting with a fixed set of choices, the values are no longer editable text boxes. You can still reorder them, remove them, and add one from the dropdown.
- System badge groupings cannot be renamed or removed, so they no longer show those buttons.
- If a plugin or theme customises one of these lists, the customisation may not carry over to the new controls. Please tell us if you find one.
Before and after
In each image, the left side is the list as it is today and the right side is the same list with the change on.
Feedback
This is an early version. Reply here if a list is harder to use than before, if something looks out of place, or if you find a list we missed.