TOPIC: Field Ordering Help

I currently have 75 fields within the component and have a few more events that I am about to bring on line which will increase this field total to almost 200. As one can imagine, with this many fields, field management is becoming an issue.

So far I am trying to keep the fields for different events organized into different ordering "areas". The system gives every new field that is added the default field order of 99 and I then change it to fit into the ordering that keeps it tidy for me. All my general information fields, names, addresses, etc, that are used for almost all events are ordered 1 through 15 ish.

After this, I have been trying to order my events in their own ordering "areas", Event 1 and 2 fields are ordered 20-30. Event 3 in 31-43, etc, etc.

All waiver fields and their acceptance fields are located at 200+ because they area always at the end of the forms and I use many of the same fields on multiple forms.

I currently have 18 events in the system and these field ordering "areas" are starting to fill up. Quite often I need to add a field after a form has gone live and as such I have found it is easier to leave a few blanks in each event "area" so that I have room to slot these fields in, without having to reorder everything.

Now to the question. If I try to order an item higher than 255, it defaults back to the 255 number. Is this a set default in DTRegister and if so can I change this? I have found the code that sets the new field items to order 99, but cannot seem to find that 255 is a setting of the system. Maybe this 255 is an omen and there cannot be more than 255 fields within DTRegister? If so, I'm going to hit the limit soon

A couple of things that I have learned while trying to come up with a system to keep everything organized:

1) if I hit the resort (move up, move down) buttons within the ordering fields, the entire list is reordered from 1 up, not leaving any of the "sorting" gaps that I have created
2)if I hit the resort (move up, move down) buttons within the ordering fields, the list does not seem to retain its ordering when the gaps get removed. So items that where near the bottom of the list, may now appear higher in the list than they originally were. This throws the orders off within the forms as well (obviously), and I need to reorder everything to get the forms looking as they should. As the fields list grows, this becomes a bigger job, so, "mental note to self", do not hit the move up, move down buttons. Reorder items by placing their new order number in the order field and hit the save button at the top of the column

Any thoughts on field ordering, or a new system of ordering fields would be much appreciated. When I hit 255 fields is DTRegister going to be full?

I'm not adverse to changing what I am doing, this just made the most sense to me as my site grew.

Thanks in advance for any of your thoughts or advice.