More feedback:
I've extensively used the "no column"->"use project default"
functionality, and I think it's logical to do it that way, but the
expression-based enhancement sounds like a good next step forward.
On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Nicklas Nordborg <nick...@thep.lu.se> wrote:
> On 2011-10-25 09:45, Pawel Sztromwasser wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I was wondering if the project defaults are used in batch importing,
>> i.e. when a property is not specified in tab-delimited file but set as
>> default in an active project? I did a quick test and it didn't work, so
>> I thought I could suggest it. This way setting project properties
>> upfront would save some work latter when editing the batch-import
>> spreadsheets.
>> I can imagine that in some cases it is not desired to set default
>> properties automatically, so maybe a plugin configuration option to use
>> project defaults would suffice. When updating with 'use defaults' option
>> set, the plugin should overwrite existing properties.
>
> The batch importers doesn't really care about "project default values".
> It is handled entirely by the core code which has a "contract" to set
> default values when creating new items, but only if no explicit value
> has been set.
>
> The key issue here is that if a column is mapped in the batch importers
> an empty value is considered as an explicit request to set the value to
> null, and the core will not use the default value. In other words, when
> using the batch importers the project default values are only used for
> unmapped columns.
>
> There are also a lot of changes in this area in BASE 3. It is now for
> example, possible to have more than one default value and the core tries
> to match everything depending on the subtype of an item.
>
> So, I don't really know what is the best solution here... Maybe, instead
> of using "hard" column mappings (eg. \Protocol\) we could add support
> for expressions. Something like =default() would always select the
> project default value, or =defaultIfNull('Protocol') select the mapped
> protocol if a value is specified, but uses the default if the column is
> empty.
>
>> The second suggestion is also about the project default properties. We
>> appreciate the nice and very useful links in the experiment
>> overview/validator that help correct the experiment, and we saw a need
>> for a new one(s). When an item is missing a protocol/software/hardware
>> (or similar), the link could help in setting the default value in the
>> active project. Or even suggest doing it for all the items of the same
>> type having the property missing. This would be an awesome option
>> allowing to fix the experiment quickly when one forgot to set the
>> defaults in advance.
>
> The "fix it" links can currently only provide a link that opens an edit
> dialog. The user must do the change manually. "Automatic" fixes would
> really nice and could probably be done for several other problems as
> well. It is not straight-forward to implement since we'll probably have
> to keep track of a lot more information related to each suggested fix.
>
> Maybe we could define some kind of 'FixIt' interface and then use a
> 'FixItFactory' to provide actual implementations. Seems like something
> for BASE 3.1 or later...
>
> /Nicklas
>
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