English > Feature Suggestions

List and Info Panel Splits

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nostra:
It is not possible yet, but I have added this feature request to my TODO list, so it will be possible sooner or later.

afrocuban:
Thank you so much for the kind of answer I needed!  ;)

rick.ca:

--- Quote from: afrocuban on April 25, 2013, 02:04:57 pm ---I'll try to clarify as much as possible, considernig language barriers.
--- End quote ---

Thanks. So it really has nothing to do with individual fields, but the window itself. Based on your description, what seems to be required is a scroll control that can be applied to a section of the skin. But what would be more straightforward and useful to more users is a splitter for the Panel. That would result in a scroll bar for each of the top and bottom splits, allowing any part of the panel to be placed in either split. The splitter could be dragged to any position to set the size of the splits, and simply dragged to the top or bottom to return to one view.

But why stop there? A split List would be very useful too. The currently selected movie could be kept in view in one split, while the other is used to scroll to a different movie. Having two movies in view in the list would provide an easy way to switch between the two. And maybe an Alt-Click of a movie in a split list would instead open that movie in the corresponding panel split—so the two movies could be compared directly.

Nope, not finished. This reminds me of something suggested long ago. That's another panel to display the person record last selected in the movie panel. In other words, clicking on a person link in a movie record would show their record in a panel below the movie panel, rather than switching to People View. Imagine that being the bottom split of the movie panel rather than a separate panel. That would allow the space used by each to be controlled with the splitter in exactly the same manner. The List could change between movies and people depending on which panel is selected. Or if split, would show movies in the top and people in the bottom split.

I'll stop now, before this gets moved from the TODO list to the BUCKET list. ;)

afrocuban:
1.
--- Quote from: rick.ca on April 26, 2013, 03:18:58 am ---what seems to be required is a scroll control that can be applied to a section of the skin.
--- End quote ---

2.
--- Quote ---But what would be more straightforward and useful to more users is a splitter for the Panel.
--- End quote ---

3.
--- Quote ---A split List would be very useful too.
--- End quote ---

4.
--- Quote ---It's another panel to display the person record last selected in the movie panel. In other words, clicking on a person link in a movie record would show their record in a panel below the movie panel, rather than switching to People View. Imagine that being the bottom split (or vertical left and right, obj. by afrocuban) of the movie panel rather than a separate panel.
--- End quote ---

5.
--- Quote ---Or if split, would show movies in the top and people in the bottom split (or vertical left and right, obj. by afrocuban).
--- End quote ---


Language barriers bridged. Bumped, so to say  ;D

I'd move couple of these posts to a Feature suggestions board...

rick.ca:

--- Quote ---I'd move couple of these posts to a Feature suggestions board...
--- End quote ---

Done. As you can see, I've moved the whole topic here. As I see it, the feature request is a rather significant change to the UI, rather than a group of related changes. I do hope, however, it's the sort of thing where the implementation effort doesn't outweigh the benefits. It does seem to be something that effectively leverages the current design, rather than requiring something radically different.

I'm assuming that once the ability to split the List and Panel (along with the rather special ability to display a different list or record in the second split) is added to the UI, all that's left are the logical behaviours for things users would expect to happen automatically. There would be differences of opinion as to what those should be, but surely such things are easily implemented and changed. Maybe there would be options for some alternative behaviours. Just to be clear about what I mean by 'behaviours'...

* When a link is selected in one panel, the target record (movie or person) is shown in the other.


* When the movie list is split, the movie selected in the top list will be shown in the top split. When a movie is selected in the bottom list, it will be shown in the bottom split. If no movie is selected, the bottom split will remain unchanged.


* When a person is shown in a panel, the corresponding (top or bottom) list would change to people.


* Dragging a splitter to the top or bottom would not only remove a split, but clear it as well. In other words, if a split list or panel were showing a different list or record, removing the split would clear that second list or record, and making a new split would again result in two views of the same list or record. For the sake of speed, clearing a split might also be done by something like double-clicking on the splitter.
It's not difficult imagining this thing being so flexible as to eliminate the need for a separate People View. I'm NOT suggesting that, as I fear it would make the change far too complicated. (And the result might be too complicated for some users to understand.) I see nothing wrong or confusing about providing the ability to select and view people records in Movie View. People View would be retained as is for updating or viewing people records in isolation. Why not splits for People View as well? It would be redundant—most of the same things could be accomplished with the splits in Movie View.

This would take a little getting used to, but would be a very flexible way to display a variety of different information in different ways. It goes well with the main idea behind the new toolbar—providing the means to quickly assemble whatever tools are necessary for the job at hand. This would allow us to quickly select whatever presentation of information is best suited to whatever we're doing at the time. Even better, split settings could be saved with tabs. Imagine just clicking tabs to get your favourite toolbar layout, view settings and splits. 8)

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