Sorting in Calc: how to make column headers become dropdown menus for sorting

If I understand correctly, you want to:

• Select one or more contiguous columns
• Go to menu Data::Filter::AutoFilter (or whatever i18n'd menu name you see in your version - position in the menu tree should be the same). Click it.

• See the new dropdown handle appear on all column headers
• Click on handle to apply the kind of filter or sort rule that you want.

Valid for OOo 3.3 and LibreOffice 4.2 and 4.4 (where the screenshots come from).

EDIT: Just came back to this and saw @sp00n's question. I am not using OOo, but LibreOffice 6.2.8.2 (on Linux) has exactly the same options. So nothing seems to have been removed in this area.

AFAIK openoffice doesn't have a sort option built into the AutoFilter Dropdown box, as Excel has. But sorting doesn't require to manually select the data area (only if there are empty rows/columns in the data area), so just use the sort buttons from the command bar to sort the data.