How can I sort Retrieved Segments by a document variable?

[derickfay]

I am analyzing changes in a body of discourse over time, so I have added a variable to indicate the actual publication date of a document.

When I retrieve coded segments, I would like to be able to sort the results on that variable, so I can review segments in their actual chronological order.

How can I do this? The Retrieved Segments window doesn't allow me to sort by related document variables, only by attributes of the coding itself.

If I activate the documents and codes, and get the Overview of Coded Segments, I can then click the Display Tooltip Variables and have the publication date variable appear in the columns, but when I sort on this variable, it doesn't sort properly.

I tried creating another variable of type Integer instead of Date/Time and using that instead but I have the same results. Sorting in the Overview of Coded Segment does change the order of the segments, but the change is apparently random rather than based on the value of the variable.

Version: MAXQDA 2018
System: Mac OS X 10.12 (Sierra)

[Andreas II.]

Dear derickfay,

I'm afraid there really is no way to sort your coded segments by document variable in the "overview of coded segments"-window. The only way to group coded segments in regard to their document variable value is provided by mixed methods features such as the "Interactive Quote Matrix". However, that would only make sense if you had "phases" and you could contrast them with one column each.. Otherwise I could only recommend to name your documents with the date in front (e.g. 180205-Yourarticle) and use that to sort your coded segments.
Kind regards,

Andreas

[derickfay]

Ok....I think I can do what I need in the Interactive Quote Matrix.

Actually, I don't think it will work. It seems that the only way to select is with an OR query. So I can enter the following criteria:

Date (Actual) > 2002
Date (Actual) < 2008

What I get are two separate columns, one with everything after 2002, another with everything before 2008. What I'd like is an AND query, so I'd get one column with everything between 2002 and 2008.

Ok...
I can Activate by Document Variable (which allows an AND query) first, then run the IQM for the activate documents. That will work reasonably well.

But it would be really nice if the code list were searchable in the IQM!