Fields: remove unused custom sort from the author fields

[oandregal]

What?

Removes the custom sort callback from the author field in @wordpress/fields and @wordpress/media-fields. Removes the in-memory author re-sort from the site editor's post list.

Why?

This is a bug fix. The author field's sort callback compared author names read from _embedded.author. However, sort receives the field values (the author ids), so _embedded was always undefined, both names fell back to an empty string, and every comparison returned 0.

Sorting by author in memory has been a silent no-op, and nothing in Gutenberg noticed because no screen actually relies on it: the post list and the media library sort server-side, and the other screens that sort in memory (templates, patterns, revisions) do not use these fields.

The one place that ran the broken callback was the site editor's post list, which fetched the page already sorted by author id from the REST API and then re-sorted it in memory to get author names. That re-sort was itself a bug: it can never reorder a single page correctly across the whole collection. The REST API only supports orderby=author, which sorts by author id, so sorting by author name is not something we can offer today.

How?

• Drop the custom sort callback from both author fields. Their type is integer, so the built-in numeric comparator takes over and sorts by author id, matching the REST API order.
• In the site editor's post list, remove the filterSortAndPaginate re-sort and its outdated comment, and stop depending on fields and view.sort when decorating records with their notes count.
• The extensible site editor's post list never re-sorted in memory, so it needs no change.

Testing Instructions

There is no user-visible change in Gutenberg, since the removed code was a no-op.

Verify nothing regressed: open Posts in the site editor and the Media library, sort by Author in both directions, and confirm the order matches what trunk shows (sorted by author id). Then run npm run test:unit -- packages/fields packages/media-fields packages/dataviews and npm run typecheck.

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Co-authored-by: oandregal <oandregal@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: ramonjd <ramonopoly@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: andrewserong <andrewserong@git.wordpress.org>

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[Copilot]

🟢 Approval recommended

The changes correctly follow DataViews sorting contracts and preserve server-provided ordering.

Pull request overview

Fixes author sorting to consistently use numeric author IDs, matching REST API behavior.

Changes:

• Removes broken author-name sort callbacks.
• Removes redundant site-editor in-memory sorting.
• Adds package changelog entries.

File summaries

File	Description
packages/media-fields/src/author/index.tsx	Uses integer sorting for media authors.
packages/media-fields/CHANGELOG.md	Documents the fix.
packages/fields/src/fields/author/index.tsx	Uses integer sorting for post authors.
packages/fields/CHANGELOG.md	Documents the fix.
packages/edit-site/src/components/post-list/index.jsx	Removes redundant page re-sorting.
packages/edit-site/CHANGELOG.md	Documents the internal change.

Review details

• Files reviewed: 6/6 changed files
• Comments generated: 0
• Review effort level: Balanced

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🤖 PR meta 🤖

📦 Bundle size

Size Change: -189 B (0%)

Total Size: 8 MB

📦 View Changed

Filename	Size	Change
build/scripts/edit-site/index.min.js	379 kB	-61 B (-0.02%)
build/scripts/editor/index.min.js	584 kB	-95 B (-0.02%)
build/scripts/media-utils/index.min.js	202 kB	-33 B (-0.02%)

_{667a333 Run}

⚡ Performance

Show the results

Client side metrics exclude the server response time.

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front-end-classic-theme

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media-upload

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_{667a333 Run}

[ramonjd]

Did a smoke test of the screens and compared against trunk. Couldn't track any regressions ✅

The REST API only supports orderby=author, which sorts by author id, so sorting by author name is not something we can offer today.

Fair enough. Is there a plan to sort by name? Right now, if I have a bunch of users whose alphabetical order doesn't match the id order, it looks like sorting doesn't work at all (at least on the surface because the names are not in alphabetical order).

Not for this PR, but it makes me wonder whether enableSorting should be enabled at all here until the REST API changes are in. Not great either I guess.

the other screens that sort in memory (templates, patterns, revisions) do not use these fields.

It's of little consequence, but I think the revisions view does use the field? It never sorts by it though, but just in case I smoke tested there too, and it LGTM

https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/fix/author-field-sort-values/packages/editor/src/components/post-revisions-timeline/index.jsx#L7

Cheers!

[andrewserong]

This looks good to get in to me, too, the post-request client-side ordering was never really going to work as a proper solution, anyway.

Not for this PR, but it makes me wonder whether enableSorting should be enabled at all here until the REST API changes are in. Not great either I guess

Interestingly enough, I rechecked the core media library screen, which allows the sorting by author field (id-based) so at the very least, by keeping enableSorting available for the media field, we're maintaining parity between the new experimental media modal, and the existing core screen:

But yes, eventually it'd be really good if core / the REST API could support sorting alphabetically by username instead 🤔

[ramonjd]

which allows the sorting by author field (id-based) so at the very least, by keeping enableSorting available for the media field, we're maintaining parity between the new experimental media modal, and the existing core screen:

I suppose it's helpful to "group" authors in a list 😄 even though it doesn't appear sorted by name. Good point

[oandregal]

Thanks, folks. Agreed to the REST API being the way forward to support sorting by author name.