EditTablePlugin: It is a bit easy with the new feature to accidently delete a row.
Maybe either a confirmation or other similar UI should be added. The move is fine now. If you accidently move you just click on the same row and that sort of cancels the mode. But delete is final. You have to cancel out of the entire edit table session and then you may loose a lot of other keying you have done.
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TWiki:Main/KennethLavrsen - 14 Jun 2007
How about a "recycle bin" type of feature? It should be easy enough to throw deleted rows into an invisible temporary holding container, rather than just tossing them into the bit bucket. Only thing is if you want to fetch rows back out of the recycle bin, they'll probably have to append to the table rather than return to their previous positions, since the table could be significantly changed by then. This way, accidental deletes can be undone, but we wouldn't bother users with the need for any additional clicks for intentional deletes. Sound reasonable?
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TWiki:Main.ByronDarrah - 14 Jun 2007
It is a difficult thing to resolve without making the normal use difficult to understand or a hell of mouse clicks.
Having a user interface with a button to undo a delete is also a bit of over doing it.
Let us brainstorm some more ideas.
- Delete makes the row grey. Hitting delete again ungray it. When you save the table the rows are deleted.
- Delete requires double click instead of single click (but how do we tell the user this?)
- "Undo delete" button below the table as you suggested (but how do we tell the user that this undo only undos the delete of rows within the edit session?)
- Delete icon only marks the rows for deletion. An extra button below the table "Delete marked" deletes the marked rows. If you click the delete button on an already marked row the row is unmarked. (Toggle). The delete marked rows may be shown only when at least one row is marked.
- The current two buttons (move and delete) could be replaced by one select/mark button. If you select a row and then click between two rows the marked row is moved. If you instead click on a delete icon the row is deleted. This could also make moving multiple rows faster. Selecting multiple rows and then clicking between two rows could move all the selected rows placing them between the two rows where you click - and maintaining the same sequence as they had before. Or more advanced in the sequence they were clicked. One button user interface per row would also require less "screen real estate" horizontally.
Maybe some of these proposals are a bit crazy or too difficult to implement in Javascript (a language I do not master at all) but it is just a brainstorm.
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TWiki:Main.KennethLavrsen - 14 Jun 2007
Thank you, those are very interesting ideas. That last one reminds me a little of the way cutting and pasting rows in an office spreadsheet application works. Here's another idea along those lines to add to the list for mulling:
- Make the delete button invisible and turn the move button into a "mark" button as you suggested. Once a row is marked, it is highlighted and may be moved exactly like the move operation currently works. However, while a row is marked, it's delete button also appears. Thus, in order to delete a row, a user would have to mark it, then move the mouse slightly and click the delete button. I think that would require enough deliberate involvement from the user that it would be unlikely to happen by accident. (It would also be almost trivially easy to implement.)
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TWiki:Main.ByronDarrah - 14 Jun 2007
Elegant solution. But the users must be informed this is the order of events. Perhaps using a tooltip for the inactive delete button?
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TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens - 14 Jun 2007
Yes, that should be quite simple, if for a tooltip we can keep it short and use the "title" or "alt" attribute of the button image. Would that be alright?
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TWiki:Main.ByronDarrah - 15 Jun 2007
What ever happened to the
EditTablePlugin items?
We had this nice javascript based editing feature but it was never really finished.
EditTablePlugin lists some problems. They are not marked urgent but there are more than one item open so I think at least some of them should be closed. Byron are you still following the development? Or has someone else with Javascript knowledge time to make the last small mainly cosmetic updates?
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TWiki:Main.KennethLavrsen - 03 Oct 2007
I will have a look at that.
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TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens - 08 Oct 2007
I think something like this could work:
- Move row interaction:
As soon as the move button is clicked, side arrows appear to indicate where the row can be inserted. The highlighted arrow also highlights the dashed line marker.
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TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens - 13 Oct 2007
Wel, this was another train of thought, not really relevant to the bug entry, and not that easily implemented.
What I
have done:
- make accidental deletion more difficult by placing the delete button to the right
- remove depedency on BehaviourContrib (although a js rewrite using behaviour would be good)
- improve user feedback when moving by highlighting the target rows
- the first clicked move button stays clickable to undo the "move state", but alas this does not work on IE as this browser fires 2 click events...
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TWiki:Main.ArthurClemens - 14 Oct 2007