How can I mimic "manual sorting" order of backlog (or sprint) with a filter/search query?

[Niklas Malmberg]

I run a team-managed software Jira project, and use backlog, sprints etc.

For planning purposes, we sometimes have created one or several 'future sprints' where we can store and prioritize future work packages. Using the backlog view, we can then order the tickets within these future sprints manually (and also manually sort the backlog order of course, top of backlog should always be prioritized). 

We also use Confluence from Atlassian, and for my landing page, I want to present a 'current work' or 'next upcoming sprint' with dynamically fetched data from Jira. 
The Confluence component (Jira Issues List) uses a JQL query to extract what to show, and I can easily get all tickets related to a certain sprint for example. But they do not show up in the same order as in the backlog view. 
Since we've spent time determine the priority = order in the list, we want the Confluence page to display the list in the same order as I can see in Jira / backlog view.

Question 1:
How is the manual 'list order' persisted in Jira, and can it be mimicked by a JQL query?

The sprint names that we see in the backlog view are text strings, but they correspond to an internal id. I might call it 'May sprint' but JQL query will use sprint = 231. (example of such a JQL query: "project in (AVT) and sprint = 231")

Question 2:
Is there a way to identify "the current" / "active sprint", or "backlog", in a JQL query?

TIA / Niklas

[Dick · Accepted solution]

Hi @Niklas Malmberg 

The manual list order is achieved in JQL by using : order by Rank

@Daniel Ebers wrote a nice article about how to incorporate sprints in a JQL query. Maybe that can alleviate your woes a bit.

Kind regards,
Dick

[Niklas Malmberg]

Thanks @Dick , Order by Rank worked like a charm (y) 
Will have a look at the supplied link as well.
Thanks a million!
//Niklas