Drupal 7: Create glossary with views, but sort it by a field other than the title?

Question

I am trying to create a glossary view but the one that Views provides uses the first letter of the node's title. I need it to use the first letter of a field named Artist in my content type. I've tried making a new Contextual Filter and match it up with the one provided by the glossary view but the Glossary mode is not even an option, which I find to be very odd. Anyone have any ideas? :-/

Answer 1

You're doing the correct thing by copying the existing Contextual Filter, for both Page and Attachment displays. Your main problem is figuring out why the Glossary mode option doesn't appear for your field. With Views 7.x-3.3, it should do if your Artist field is a Text type but I suspect yours is actually a List or Term reference.

If it's a List (text) field: upgrade to Views 7.x-3.x-dev and the glossary mode option will be available.

If it's a Term reference field: add a Relationship for the Term or "Taxonomy terms on node" and then you will be able to use the Term Name as a glossary argument.

If it's a Node reference field: add a Relationship for your node reference field and check "Require this relationship". Then update the Content: Title contextual filter in both the Page and Attachment displays to use this relationship. This tells the view that the filter should be based on the title of the related node instead of the parent node.