Resolved In some views, domains aren't listed alphabetically when they have different hosting types

[Kaspar]

Username:

TITLE

In some views, domains aren't listed alphabetically when they have different hosting types

PRODUCT, VERSION, OPERATING SYSTEM, ARCHITECTURE

Plesk 18.0.64
OS: any

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

Domains aren't listed alphabetically in some views when they have different hosting types.

For example, when using the Power User view domains with a hosting type other than "website" are sorted differently. These are actually listed after the domains who do have a hosting type of "website".

The same thing happens when logged in as a customer (and the customer has multiple subscriptions).

For comparison, the domain list in Provider View does sort domains alphabetically.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1) Switch to Power User view
2) add 3 different domains starting with a differing letter (or number). For example:

• a-domain.com
• t-domain.com
• z-domain.com

See how these domains are listed alphabetically.

3) Change the hosting type of the first domain (a-domain.com)

See how this domain (a-domain.com) is now listed at the bottom of the list.

ACTUAL RESULT

Domains are not listed alphabetically when there are domains with different hosting types.

EXPECTED RESULT

Domains are sorted alphabetically regardless of their hosting type.

ANY ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

(DID NOT ANSWER QUESTION)

YOUR EXPECTATIONS FROM PLESK SERVICE TEAM

Confirm bug

 

[Sebahat.hadzhi]

Thank you for the report, Kaspar. I was able to reproduce the described behavior and forwarded it to our team for further review. I will update you with confirmation shortly

 

[Sebahat.hadzhi]

Kaspar, our team confirmed that this behavior is by design. With the Power User view domains are first organized by groups and then listed alphabetically.

 

[Kaspar]

I see, thanks @Sebahat.hadzhi

I suspect the Hosting Type grouping is a leftover from the deprecated classic and active list views and hasn't evolved with the more recent Plesk UI changes. On the deprecated classic and active views there actually was a column showing the hosting type, which could be used for sorting too.

(Screen shot from the deprecated active list view, which had a separate Type column)

But on the current list view the grouping by Hosting Type does not serve any real purpose in my opinion. The issue with this is that there are currently no visual indicators on the list (like separators, headers or indentation) to let users know the domains are grouped and sorted according to the hosting type rather than (completely) alphabetical. Of course the Hosting Type of a domain is shown as a description next to domain name in the list (alias, forward or no hosting), but this is no indication for the listing order.

Because of this I would like to argue that grouping and sorting domains by hosting type is actually not expected behavior (not anymore at least). Because how would a user know the domains are grouped? They don't and I think that makes it confusing

This becomes even more problematic when you have a lot of domains, as the domain list is paginated (by default anyway). This makes it really hard to visually find specific domains in the list.

Allow me to give an actual use case example to illustrate why grouping by Hosting Type isn't expected or desired. I have a substantial number of customers who host their website externally. Often with a generic gTLD domain (like example.com), but also use country specific domains (like example.de, example.bg, example.fr). Some external services don't support domain country specific domains or charge extra fees for us8ing aliases. So my customers rather manage these domains in Plesk (which is good for my business). However because of the way Plesk handles SSL certificates for domain aliases, the www prefix can't be secured on domain aliases if the main domain is hosted externally. So adding these county specific domains as aliases in Plesk isn't an option. Instead these domains are added separately as a forward domain, redirecting to the main domain (example.com). This way it is possible to secure the www prefix of domains with a certificate.

You would expect these domains (the main example.com domain and the separate country specific domains to be ordered below to each other in the domain list. That would be, visually, the most sensible. After all, they do belong together (same domain, different Hosting Type).




Maybe this can be look at again by a PM?