Re: [Tb] Fundamental usability issues & bugs

Firstly, I APOLOGISE

I was *extremely* tired and frustrated trying to export some
information in a hurry but that doesn't excuse my rudeness.

However, as Lee Phillips has since pointed out, my frustrations with
the export function stemmed from a chain of bugs & UI inconsistencies:
1) the error message telling you export isn't possible because
there's no default template has language implying a singular default
template. I was repeatedly changing the Application default template,
in ignorance of the fact that there was also a Document default
template and it was that about which the export was complaining.

2) as Lee confirmed, inside the export dialog, if you select a
different template, the change appears to have no effect. The visible
preview stubbornly shows only what would be exported using the
Document default template.

3) the inconsistencies between the HTML and Text export UI were
perceived by me as lack of attention to this area, coupled with the
bugs described above.

On 15/12/2005, at 10:16 AM, Mark Bernstein wrote:
> Choosing one item from a list of a hundred or so is a UI problem,
> not only for Tinderbox but (to the best of my knowledge) for everyone.
agreed. I have some ideas, would love to exchange them but workload
for the next few months will intrude - I will however make a
commitment to using TB more seriously in dealing with that workload
and record my relevant ideas as I go. (Mark, this workload relates to
a very large PP2MFC-based Mac->Windows conversion and our acquisition
of AppMaker, something that may be of renewed interest to you).

> The addition of drag-and-drop from the attribute palette to key
> attribute tables, and draggable key attribute entries, should (I
> would think) be welcome to people who disliked the old way of
> handling this.
>
tucked away in "minor" items in the 3.0.2 release notes - to me this
is a gem of an improvement that should have been trumpeted - it would
be enough to make me decide to renew subs if they were pending!

THANKS for this feature
> If you find yourself manipulating attributes all the time, it's
> likely you could benefit from a cleaner prototype scheme.

hmm, I will have to think long and hard about this. This may be a
good point or relate to considerable differences in style - I tend to
think of metadata and desirable tags after the fact.

regards and a merry festive season

Andy
Received on Fri Dec 23 04:54:41 2005