Manual sorting of sys_category

Question

On my TYPO3 7 site, i'm not able to choose an order to the categories of a page or a news (plugin tx_news). I can only choose what categories that page or news have, using the checkboxes to select them.

Is there any configuration for that?

Alternatively, I may override these fields with my own TCA, but have no ideas on how to get a sorting tree of categories. Any hint?

On my sites running previous TYPO3 versions with tt_news plugin, its category tree allows to change the sorting after selecting the categories.

I coudn't find anything about it on the "select" documentation (https://docs.typo3.org/typo3cms/TCAReference/Reference/Columns/Select/Index.html). Looks like MM relations doesn't support sorting.

Does anyone knows how to get it?

Answer 1

Make sure you have the "extended view" checked at the end of the page. You can then sort the sys_category-entries using the up/down arrows.

Answer 2

If you need to sort your categories per item and not globally then a default MM relation will not work as it doesn't support sorting. You're on the right track. Override or extend the TCA, don't specify a MM relation and don't use the tree view rendering. Use a standard select like you would select pages. This should store the values as a comma-list string in the database and so represent the sorting like you would see it the backend.