Widget filefeed sort option RANDOM, is not so good.

[SJ77]

Hi

I noticed that when creating a downloads block for a file feed sorted randomly that it massively favors older files and doesn't at all look random.

I think I have narrowed down the code driving this behavior to system/Content/Widgets.php

		/* As the block config can try and search all rows in topics/records, etc, we can end up with a tmp table and block nested buffer on members table, so we just query members after separately */
		$skipPerms = ( !isset( $this->configuration['widget_feed_use_perms'] ) or $this->configuration['widget_feed_use_perms'] ) ? static::$skipPermissions : TRUE;
		$items = iterator_to_array( $class::getItemsWithPermission(
			$where,	/* Where clause */
			( isset( $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] ) and isset( $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_dir'] ) ) ? ( ( $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] == '_rand' ) ? $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] : (  $class::$databaseTable . '.' . $class::$databasePrefix . $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] . ' ' . $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_dir'] ) ) : ( $class::$databaseTable . '.' . $class::$databasePrefix . $class::$databaseColumnMap['updated'] . ' DESC' ), /* Order */

			( isset( $this->configuration['widget_feed_show'] ) AND $this->configuration['widget_feed_show'] ) ? $this->configuration['widget_feed_show'] : 5, /* Limit */
			( $skipPerms ) ? NULL : 'read', /* Permission key to check against */
			$hidden, /* Whether or not to include hidden items */
			$class::SELECT_IDS_FIRST
		) );

However, I don't know how to fix. Can anyone help improve the randomness of this sort option?

Thank you 🙂

[bfarber]

Well, you could change this part

( $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] == '_rand' ) ? $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] :

to

( $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] == '_rand' ) ? 'RAND()' :

but this will likely seriously slow down the widget. If you have a lot of files, it may take a lot of processing power to rebuild the block when the cache expires.

The special "_rand" key uses a substring of the date timestamp to pull a random number, so in most cases it should be sufficiently random while also not being very resource intensive.

[SJ77]

3 hours ago, bfarber said:

Well, you could change this part

( $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] == '_rand' ) ? $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] :

to

( $this->configuration['widget_feed_sort_on'] == '_rand' ) ? 'RAND()' :

but this will likely seriously slow down the widget. If you have a lot of files, it may take a lot of processing power to rebuild the block when the cache expires.

The special "_rand" key uses a substring of the date timestamp to pull a random number, so in most cases it should be sufficiently random while also not being very resource intensive.

I know it’s always tricky to pull random data from a resource perspective but the current is Not very random at all. It favors highly the oldest stuff. 
 

switching The order by ‘DESC’ to ‘ASC’

might help? Thoughts?