I appreciate that JQuery is "free" and there are many good/keen developers - who help out wherever they can and cost to them - but why is it that the overall support for UI Sortables is generally very poor - actually non-existent (to-date) from where I am.  

I have a simple problem with UI Sortables, but after considerable research on the BigG, posting here there and everywhere I am still no nearer finding or getting an answer or even seeing something I can understand.  OK I admit I am quite at home with php, css, html etc but js/Jquery ummmm that is all new to me -. so I am always looking for things/explanations that I can understand.  Sadly for JQuery it seems that 99% of the tutorials etc. out there are written in a way that I cannot understand and based on on posts in other forums etc I know I am not alone.

What I need to know - and the "world en-mass" (slight exageration) also would like to know is how do you serialize and save UI sortables from multiple lists.  I know it will not be that difficult just I cannot ANYWHERE find the answer.

I have 4 placement areas with the css class .column, with each column given a unique id - col1 to col4.

I can move stuff round but can I get to serialise that data - NO.

Likewise once serialized how on earth do you read that data to repopulate the placement holders.  Please do not say look at "help" items like  http://jqueryui.com/demos/sortable/#event-update  - http://jqueryui.com/demos/sortable/#method-toArray - http://jqueryui.com/demos/sortable/#method-serialize as they are not help items to people like me.  As I have said in other posts they are "martian".

Now, if I havn't been banned where and how do you put the serialization code into this:

$(document).ready(function(){

$(function() {

$(".column").sortable({

revert: true,

scroll: true,

appendTo: 'body',

connectWith: '.column',

cancel: '.disabled',

stop: function() {

Note: set a cookie --> cookie plugin installed and understood

does it go here?

if it does what is it?

if it doesn't - where does it go and what is it?

},

revertDuration:50000,

scope:'scope',

opacity: 0.80,

});

My html is quiet simple:

<div class="column" id="col1">

<div class="portlet">

<h2 class="portlet-header"><div class="toggleup"></div>Feeds</h2>

<div class="portlet-content">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit</div>

</div>

<div class="portlet">

<h2 class="portlet-header"><div class="toggleup"></div>Feeds</h2>

<div class="portlet-content">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit</div>

</div>

</div>

plus 3 other class="column"'s each with their unique id.

Beyond that how do you "recall" the data to repopulate the columns.

Sorry if I have annoyed anybody but 2 days of research and trying to get alert() to trigger info hasn't worked.  as said Getting very angry with UI Sortables.