I find it easiest to make a global variable for the sort field and sort order and define it within my .cfg file.
$sort_field ='4'; ### sort by title
$sortorder = 'ascend';
Then in your html.pl in the following subs:
sub html_view_search
sub html_view_failure
you could also add to:
sub html_delete_search
sub html_modify_search
You can just add this to the forms:
<input type="hidden" name="sb" value="$sort_field">
<input type="hidden" name="so" value="$sortorder">
This and many more tips and tricks are available in the FAQ noted below.
Unoffical DBMan FAQ
http://creativecomputingweb.com/dbman/index.shtml/