"Sort by" or "Why Are We Not on the Menu?": A Story of Divs, Dropdowns, and Dropped Expectations

Imagine walking into our world-famous Restaurant of Mistaken Orders, where the charm lies not in what you ordered, but what you end up with. You ask for a refreshing iced tea, and what do you get? Spaghetti Bolognese. You request a slice of cake, and a plate of sushi arrives. The unpredictability is part of the charm. But what if the unpredictability spilled over into technology, where we expect things to work as planned? Welcome to the wild world of “Sort by”—where things aren't quite what they seem, much like the orders at our beloved restaurant.

The Problem: "Sort by" – A Div Masquerading as a Dropdown

At the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders, we love a good surprise. But when it comes to coding, we’d appreciate a little more... predictability. So, let’s talk about the curious case of our Sort by feature, which is acting more like a rogue waiter who just won’t bring you what you asked for.

You see, "Sort by" looks like a button. It sits there in the interface, all smug, waiting for you to click it and organize your assets. But plot twist—it's not a button at all. It's a div! Yes, a div that wants to be a dropdown, but doesn't behave like one. And, as anyone who has worked with React will tell you, a div pretending to be a button is like asking for a Caesar salad and getting a chocolate soufflé. Oddly delightful in some contexts, but entirely unhelpful when you just want your greens.

Reverse Sorting and Refresh Buttons: The True Buttons

While the "Sort by" dropdown is over in its corner doing whatever it is divs do, the “Reverse Sort by” and “Refresh” buttons are behaving like proper restaurant staff. These two are actual buttons! You can click them, interact with them, and they’ll flip your A-Z sort to Z-A like a waiter finally getting your dessert order correct (on the third try, naturally). They do their job. They understand their place in the hierarchy of web components.

But “Sort by”? Nope. That’s our rebellious chef who refuses to make an omelette because "eggs are just too mainstream." And this chef has taken a vow of silence. You can click it all you want, but it just won’t respond.

Why Can’t I Click It?

Now, here’s where things get quirky—just like how, at our restaurant, sometimes the soup shows up without a spoon. Normally, you can attach click events to divs. It's no big deal. But in this case, when you try to attach a click event to the Sort by div, nothing happens. It’s like trying to get a table by waving frantically at the maître d’—completely ignored.

What makes matters worse? The sub-menu from the dropdown is generated on the fly. That means it’s not sitting there in the DOM waiting to be poked and prodded by eager developers like us. No, no, that would be too easy. It’s only created when someone manually interacts with it. Like a ghost menu that only appears when you whisper the secret password.

But Why Do We Even Want to Click It?

Good question! You might be wondering, why all this fuss over clicking something that doesn’t want to be clicked? Well, it’s because we’ve got an AI assistant that needs to help sort the page based on user commands. Someone might say, “Hey, sort my assets by title!” and we want our trusty assistant to do just that. But instead of giving the AI the nice, neat power to sort via the search API, which refuses to cooperate, we’re stuck trying to simulate a click.

It would be as simple as pressing a button—if only that button were an actual button and not a div in disguise.

The Not-So-Tasty Solution

So, what's the workaround? How do we deal with a rogue div that won’t let us simulate a click? Well, my solution was to update the session that contains the sorting information and then refresh the page. You know, like how at our restaurant, if you really want to get what you asked for, you just order something else entirely and hope for the best.

It’s not elegant. It’s like serving soup in a coffee cup—it technically works, but no one’s thrilled about it.

Why Isn't It a Real Dropdown or Button?

The burning question that keeps us up at night (besides “Did I accidentally double-book that reservation?”) is: Why isn’t "Sort by" a real dropdown or button? If it were, life would be simpler, and our AI assistant could gracefully handle sorting duties. But instead, we’re left with this div-shaped puzzle that, like a misplaced order of anchovy ice cream, leaves us scratching our heads.

Would it have been too easy to just use a button? A standard dropdown? Something with a little more... clickability? Perhaps. But at the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders, we know that sometimes things get a little jumbled up. And in this case, “Sort by” is serving us a confusing, featureless div where there should be a nice, interactive button.

The Final Word

In conclusion, working with this quirky div reminds me of dining at our beloved restaurant. You never quite know what you’re going to get, and sometimes, the solution isn’t what you wanted—but it’s what you’ve got to work with. We’ll make do with session updates and page refreshes, but deep down, we’ll always long for a day when “Sort by” is finally a proper button, ready to be clicked at will.

Until then, we’ll just embrace the chaos—both in our code and on our plates. After all, if everything worked perfectly, it just wouldn’t be the Restaurant of Mistaken Orders, now would it?