Sort with group by?

[KidA001]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I'm using the sort feature and though I do want to sort, it makes it difficult to understand when the lines from a previous parent cross with another. See my screenshot below.

Describe the solution you'd like
It would be great if there was a way to sort and group by the previous parent. For instance in my screenshot above I'd like to sort the Main House and Studio/Garage respectively, so that the lines from the children don't cross.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Maybe there is already a way to do this that I'm not familiar with. Thanks for your work, this is an awesome tool

[KidA001]

@MindFreeze I'm thinking of trying to take on this feature and curious if you have input. It would be helpful if the Box type knew what it's parent was. Seeing where you set boxes, would it make sense to set the parent's name here here?

chart.ts:

// Line 228

const boxes: Box[] = section.entities
  .filter(entityConf => {
    const { min_state } = this.config;
    // remove empty entity boxes
    if (entityConf.type === 'remaining_parent_state') {
      return this.connectionsByChild.get(entityConf)?.some(c => c.state && c.state >= min_state);
    }
    if (entityConf.type === 'remaining_child_state') {
      return this.connectionsByParent.get(entityConf)?.some(c => c.state && c.state >= min_state);
    }
    const { state } = this._getMemoizedState(entityConf);
    return state && state >= min_state;
  })

...

Still understanding your code a bit, but if you have input on where the parent info could be pulled and assigned to a new field on Box above. If _sortBoxes(..) can know which box belongs to which parent it makes grouping by possible. Then SectionConfig could take an additional field group_by_parent?: Boolean

[MindFreeze]

Skip the group_by_parent option and let's make this the default behavior. The issue is that parents may also be sorted and that sorting isn't saved yet.
So first this.sections = filteredConfig.sections.map(...) has to be refactored to a forEach loop of filteredConfig.sections that assigns to this.sections[i] at each loop.
This way when we call this._sortBoxes we can pass this.sections[i-1] which is the sorted parent boxes and they contain children info, so we can sort by parent first and then by state

[MindFreeze]

@KidA001 I found it easier to just implement it. It will be part of 1.16.0

[KidA001]

Hah, I was going to say it sounds like you know exactly what to do. These HA plugins often get hoarded with feature requests so I try to offer my support when I'm making one myself. Thanks for working on this!

[nathan-curtis]

@MindFreeze how do I turn this off? It's completely jacked all my charts - I sort by entity value asc - and its not working correctly.
Yep - reverted to 1.15.1 and both this sorting and a bar scaling issue that appeared both went away.

[nathan-curtis]

Skip the group_by_parent option and let's make this the default behavior. The issue is that parents may also be sorted and that sorting isn't saved yet. So first this.sections = filteredConfig.sections.map(...) has to be refactored to a forEach loop of filteredConfig.sections that assigns to this.sections[i] at each loop. This way when we call this._sortBoxes we can pass this.sections[i-1] which is the sorted parent boxes and they contain children info, so we can sort by parent first and then by state

This is my breaking change, sir, and a regression as not listed as breaking. Please revert. or provide override.