tl;dr I'm making question listings more useful with custom views similar to new-nav. It's currently in beta. Screenshots below.
There are a fair number of the outstanding iOS app bugs/feature requests revolving around better question sorting and filtering (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). In the past I've tried enhancing things with search, but that's somewhat limited and involves a lot of steps in the UI. So I'm trying something new, namely ripping off a bunch of ideas from new-nav to let you define your own views.
Now when you tap to sort a question list, you will get a list of sorts which you can swipe left to rename, duplicate, or delete, or expand into to modify what kinds of questions are shown, what tags they have, and how they're sorted. (e.g, questions tagged ios-app with no answer ordered by votes).
Like with new nav, if you go to tagged questions, it will create an unsaved view for that tag which you can then edit and save.
How big of a change is it for casual users?
Hopefully minimal. If you just stick to the existing views, it should be similar to before. The biggest changes are that I've removed "Unanswered (My Tags)" (up for discussion) and that changing the sort on a tagged question list involves the new picker UI.
What's implemented in beta?
- Renaming: Swipe left on the sort and tap "Rename".
- Duplicating: Swipe left on the sort and tap "Duplicate". A new unsaved view will appear below the current one.
- Deleting: Swipe left and tap "Delete".
- New view: Tap the + icon in the top right.
- Filters: After expanding a view you can set the filter: All, Needs Answer, No Answer, With Bounty, Hot Today, Hot This Week. Not all sorts will be available with all tag configurations.
- Tags: After expanding a view you can add up to 5 tags to filter on inclusively, so you could say "ios-app AND feature-request" but not "ios-app OR feature-request"
- Sorts: After expanding a view you can sort by Active, Votes, Newest.
- Saving: You can add or edit a view without saving for temporary use or save it for reuse.
- Faster switching. The sort picker doesn't automatically dismiss when you change sorts, so you could quickly jump between question lists looking for something to answer.
- Reordering: Switching the table to edit mode so you can move things up and down.
- New question realtime bar.
- The ability to switch between Any and All tags.
- Better handling of URLs in links.
What's punted (API stuff)
- Synchronizing views with the web or between devices.
- Full filter support for complex tag queries. (Just All, Needs Answer, No Answer)
- Hot This Month
- Popular items by anything other than "Hot"
- Sorting by anything other than Active, Votes, Newest
- Even more complex tag configuration (
[a][b] or [c][d]) - Any sort of "Home" or "Interesting" view.
- The ability to exclude tags from a sort.
When will it ship?
It was put in the App Store review queue on 2016-03-07.
The default setup currently has "active", "newest", "with bounty", "hot today", "voted that need answers"
Tapping to expand the selected view reveals options to change the filter, tags, and view.
Visiting a tag creates a new unsaved sort that can be edited and saved.
