In K2 I've got a few categories of items, we'll call them Category A and B, and individual items are assigned within these categories. In my front end, I need the items from Cat B to display before Cat A. In my K2 Categories list, B is listed before A. But in the K2 Items, Cat A items list before B.

If I attempt to drag Cat B items above A, Cat A grays out during the dragging process indicating that B items can only be re-arranged within Cat B, and cannot be dragged above A.

Am I missing a setting or am I doing something out of sequence? How can I get Cat B items to show before A?

Hello,

The ordering feature applies only to one category, if you need to order item across multiple categories, you need to use feature ordering instead.

I think I might not be explaining it right. I'm not looking to feature an entire category, I'm just looking to have the Items of a given category display before the Items of another. Setting Items as Featured would also have them pick up the "Featured" text.

Here's is an image series explaining it better...
i.imgur.com/NhYgVzK.png

As I mentioned, ordering is available only for items belonging directly to one category, hence the graying out part.
You can remove the featured text in your overrides (most likely a minor CSS edit) and use feature ordering to display items the way you want them to.

That seems like a bit of a wonky way to organize things, don't you think? What if we really did want to have featured items but we've CSS hidden or language overridden the "Featured" text? I thought creation date might play a role but after changing all of the dates for the items in the category that I want to show first, nothing changed. I think once it's set, it's set. For now, until a fix is issued, the only way to re-organize display order is to edit the SQL.

I think having the ability to display category items in the order we need is pretty important and should be considered for subsequent releases.

f the dates for the items in the category that I want to show first

That would require setting the ordering to chronological, the default ordering would be by the item's id.

Agreed. Chronological ordering wont work for me because in my front end, it would look like there was no order to the products. Any time a new product was entered, I'd have to re-edit the creation dates of all surrounding items in order to get it to display in the proper position. Something is tying the Items to their listed position and not allowing them to move higher than the Items of another category. I took a stab at it possibly being date of entry but that didn't work. Even though in the K2 Category manager I have them organized in the positioning order I'd like them to display, the K2 Items manager is ignoring this ordering preference. I don't know what dictates the order the Items appear.

It seems like the Items, in theory, should follow the same order priority positioning as set in the Category manager.

If a user creates:
Categories:
- Category A
- Category B

The items should in kind follow as:
Items:
- Items assigned to Category A
- Items assigned to Category B

Instead we can unfortunately be stuck with (as in my case):
Items:
- Items assigned to Category B
- Items assigned to Category A

And there's apparently no way to correct this currently. A possible solution, that I don't really love, is to have just one single K2 Category, such as "Products", and use Tags in place of Categories. Tag each item with the keyword of what would have been its Category name and you'll be able to use the "Select Tag" dropdown option in the Items manager to sort for Category name (requires allowing that option in the K2 settings, of course). Since there's only one Category, you're free to organize all Items, regardless of Category tag to the order you think they should appear in your front end. It defeats the purpose of having true K2 Categories, but in lieu of having the ability to organize your Categories' display order, it's a temporary bandaid that works.

I think it should be considered and corrected though in future releases to have the Items order match the Categories order.

Stupid question but, have you tried reordering the categories as well?

Sure did. As mentioned K2 Categories are in the correct order - A then B. However the K2 Items are listed in the order B then A, with no way to move the A items ahead of the B items to have them display in the right order. As soon as you try to drag an A item higher than B, the B items gray out, limiting reorganization within the A category but all still lower than Category B items.