Google-sheets – How to get Google Sheets to show a sort by column UX

You can use the sort() function for that, but you have to have your data in one place, and an automatically sorted copy of that data in another place.

For example, say I have Sheet1 with my data:

   | A    | B    | C
=====================
 1 | This | this | 2
 2 | Is   | is   | 1
 3 | Test | test | 3

Then in Sheet2, cell A1, I would put this function:

=sort(Sheet1!A:C, 3, TRUE)

This would show my data, but sorted by column C (the third column), ascending.

   | A    | B    | C
=====================
 1 | Is   | is   | 1
 2 | This | this | 2
 3 | Test | test | 3

I don't think rowHeight can help you here, because it refers to the entire row, not to any particular cell in it. Sorting each column by RowHeight would just rearrange the rows without making your spreadsheet more compact.

Here is the script that sorts each column by the length of cell content, ascending. The first row (headers) is left in place; empty cells are ignored.

function myFunction() {
   var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
   var sheet = ss.getActiveSheet();
   var range = sheet.getDataRange();
   var width = range.getWidth();
   var height = range.getHeight();
   var column, i, j, content;
   for (j = 1; j <= width; j++) {
     column = [];
     for (i = 2; i <= height; i++) {
       content = range.getCell(i,j).getValue();
       if (content) {
         column.push(content);
       }
     }
     column.sort(function (a,b) {return a.length - b.length;});
     for (i = 0; i < column.length; i++) {
       range.getCell(i+2,j).setValue(column[i]);
     }
     for (i = column.length; i < height-1; i++) {
       range.getCell(i+2,j).setValue("");
     }
  }
}

But in practice, this particular sort does not help all that much, because (as you noticed) the longer texts can still match up against shorter texts. Here is another sort, somewhat along the lines of what you mentioned: after sorting, each column is dropped down so that all the longest entries are in the same row. This will typically result in some empty cells at the top.

function myFunction2() {
   var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
   var sheet = ss.getActiveSheet();
   var range = sheet.getDataRange();
   var width = range.getWidth();
   var height = range.getHeight();
   var column, i, j, content;
   for (j = 1; j <= width; j++) {
     column = [];
     for (i = 2; i <= height; i++) {
       content = range.getCell(i,j).getValue();
       if (content) {
         column.push(content);
       }
     }
     column.sort(function (a,b) {return a.length - b.length;});
     for (i = 0; i < column.length; i++) {
       range.getCell(height-column.length+i+1,j).setValue(column[i]);
     }
     for (i = 2; i <= height-column.length; i++) {
       range.getCell(i,j).setValue("");
     }
  }
}