Subject: bug#46240: Sorting order of read-char-by-name

From: Juri Linkov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2021 19:13:13 +0200

> This has 2 disadvantages:
>
>   . the user needs to know the order of characters within a script
>     he/she doesn't necessarily read

In this case usually the names of characters of an unknown script
say nothing too, so sorting them by their names doesn't help much.

>   . the user needs to know the order _between_ scripts, if the
>     candidates include characters from different Unicode blocks

IMHO, this is not a disadvantage, but an advantage, because
it helps to group the matched characters by their Unicode ranges.
So when the user is not interested in certain scripts, then the user
can simply scroll down the groups of uninteresting ranges, and
look for characters only in needed Unicode blocks of scripts.

> If the user doesn't know this order, he/she might be unable to find
> the required character quickly, if the list of candidates is long
> enough.

I never rely on the current sorting alphabetically by names.
When the list of candidates is long, I need to use isearch
to search in the necessary block whose characters are scattered
currently in almost random order.