It seems like sortable_link works well if you are pulling data from only one database but what happens if you have to do a look-up on one of the fields? Consider the following model for my activity log. It has the following fields in the database:
id,
user_id int(11),
ip_address varchar(255),
controller varchar(255),
action varchar(255),
params text

The user_id is obvisously an integer representing a user_id so in my view I would need to do a look-up to get the user login or user name based on that id. I'm going to paste my listing.tpl view and I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to sort on the user field. See below for the code:

<div id="comment-listing" class="action listing">
<h1>_{Manage Contest}</h1>
<h2>_{Contest Activity Log}</h2>
{?activity_logs}
<table>
<tr>
<th>_{User}</th>
<th><%= sortable_link 'ip_address', {}, :link_text => _('IP Addr') %></th>
<th><%= sortable_link 'controller', {}, :link_text => _('Controller') %></th>
<th><%= sortable_link 'action', {}, :link_text => _('Action') %></th>
<th><%= sortable_link 'params', {}, :link_text => _('Params') %></th>
</tr>
{loop activity_logs}
<? $log_user =& $CurrentContest->user->find( 'first', array('conditions'=>array( 'id = ?', $activity_log->user_id ) ) ); ?>
<tr>
<td>{log_user.login}</td>
<td>{activity_log.ip_address?}</td>
<td>{activity_log.controller?}</td>
<td>{activity_log.action?}</td>
<td>{activity_log.params?}</td>
</tr>
{end}
</table>
{?activity_log_pages.links}
<div id="AddressPagination">
<div id="paginationHeader"><?php echo translate('Showing page %page of %number_of_pages',
array('%page'=>$activity_log_pages->getCurrentPage(),
'%number_of_pages'=>$activity_log_pages->pages))?></div>
{activity_log_pages.links?}
</div>
{end}

{else}
<p>_{No activity has been logged at this time.}</p>
{end}

</div>



Thanks!
-- pogeybait4883