Ordering Pages database by field type

[Meddysong]

In the Feature Plan items were ordered by their field type. Items classed as "Up Next", with the field value 1, were at the top of the list, followed by "Coming Soon" (= 2) and "Planning Stages" (= 3). Once an item was finished, its field was changed to "Completed" (= 4) and it moved to the bottom.

Something similar seems to be the case with Release Notes. The IDs in order are 17, 4, 15, 5, 6, 7, 8 ...

How is this ordering pulled off, given that we don't have much in the way of options? Is it just the case that they're ordered by published time (which will usually correspond with record ID) and then the published time is later edited to determine the new position? Or is there a way of doing it so that whatever is a particular field will appear above something that is another?

I'm asking because one of my databases contains tasks which are either open or closed. I've set it up at the moment so that comments bump a record to the top and once it's switched to closed, then the formatting changes, but we'd much prefer closed cases to automatically reposition themselves below open ones.

My colleagues feel this would appear much less daunting if the open tasks (= open padlock on green button) were at the top, ordered by most recent comments, and the closed cases (closed padlock on red button/greyed-out row) all appeared afterwards. Is there a way to pull this off?

[Meddysong]

Is there any special magic you applied to pull this off, @Rikki, or is it as unglamorous a case as "We order by publishing date and then when changing a field's value, we change the publishing date too to something that will make it queue up just where the row is needed"? Thank you for any insight you can offer

[opentype]

It’s a setting in the database setting. No special tricks necessary. 

[Meddysong]

Oh, wow - there it is!

The downside is that it's ordering firstly by field (excellent!) and then by either published date or id number within those fields. This means that new records are added to the bottom of that field, whereas I'd like them and comments to bump to the top.

I think I'll have to make a decision on going one way or the other, though allowing to choose a secondary ordering ("By field, and then within that field order by descending by alphabet/time updated/latest comment etc") would be ace.