The detail header's listening-order select persisted fine and the
reader chain honored it, but the page's card list never applied
chain_order (it kept the composed query's title order) — so flipping
the select changed nothing visible, and Play as Sequence launches from
the FIRST CARD ON THE PAGE, making the played start (and the perceived
order) disagree with the curated setting (2026-11-01 user report on
the smart podcast page).
- Smart episode collections: the page's match list re-orders through
OrderEpisodeMedia (the same OrderEpisodes comparator the sequence
producer uses — §10 R2's single source of order truth) before card
building. Books-scope matches keep title order.
- Static episode playlists: the sequence now honors the curated order
too — native keeps the manual position order (SQL), reverse flips
it, oldest/newest re-key on publication date with feed position as
tiebreak. Previously statics ignored chain_order entirely while the
select rendered on their pages.
Pins: native page order (feed positions) and the reverse flip
re-ordering the SSR cards, asserted in the curated-order subtest
alongside the existing reader-chain pins. Podcast/playlist/audiobook/
RLS/dashboard/contract slices green.
The 'Oldest first' order sorts by PUB DATE, which breaks on Scribl's
migrated podiobooks feeds (messy/all-equal dates). New order value
'reverse' = feed position DESC with a date-DESC tiebreak — dates are
not involved, so nothing can break.
- services.OrderEpisodes: THE single order source of truth (§0 items
3+5a). The four surfaces (sequence JSON, reader chain context, SSR
page list) previously carried three near-identical handwritten
comparators — all now route through one generic helper. The SSR page
list gains a SortDate key (lexical 2006-01-02) so the pub-date
tiebreak is actually chronological; the old comparator compared
'Jan 2, 2006' display strings alphabetically (latent drift bug).
- Dropdown becomes four options: Feed order / Feed order (reversed) /
Oldest first (pub date) / Newest first (pub date).
- Serial suggestion button renamed 'Reverse feed order' (sets reverse,
not oldest) and its response out-of-band-swaps the order select
(PodcastOrderSelectOOB — same mechanism as Download All's policy
select), so the dropdown mirrors the server state immediately.
- Validation: oneof=native reverse oldest newest everywhere.
- Tests: reverse binds via the form wire; messy-dates sequence
returns 3,2,1; existing reorder-safety stays green.
John O'Keefe