On Feb 6, 2007, at 6:03 PM, Mimi Yin wrote:
Hi John,
I don't disagree that in the abstract, the ability to change views
is useful. My concern has to do with the fact that 'Search results'
itself is a 5th kind of view, the other 4 being: Day View, Week
View, Dashboard and Table...and that it is not intuitive how you
invoke it again once you've switched away from it.
The way views are implemented in Chandler today you can attach any of
3 views to a collection of items. Currently we have only 3 views
which internally are named: Calendar, Dashboard and Table view. It
just so happens that in Calendar view you can switch between weeks
and days, but it's still just one view not two. It's similar to
adding another column to a existing Dashboard or Table view. You see
the new column in the same view, not a different view. Likewise
opening or closing a section in a Dashboard view doesn't change which
view you are using, just what is shown in that view.
I am reluctant to have 5 view options in the View menu, so for
Preview, I'm suggesting that we shorten it to Day View, Week View
and the thing we call Dashboard under the hood, but should probably
present to the user as a Table...and display search results in the
Dashboard/Table.
So I think the proposal is to replace the current 4 items in the menu
plus the "Use sections" entry (a total of 5 menus) with only 3: one
for each view Calendar, Dashboard and Table (maybe called something
different) -- a net reduction of 2 menu items. Maybe we should leave
out Table if we decide not to use it for search and it doesn't
present any advantage over the Dashboard for finding things.
It's also easy for us or outside contributors to add other views in
the future.
I think we need to reframe this issue in terms of user needs again.
In concrete terms, what are the specific use cases for being able
to switch views independent of the App area? For example, what
specific task would a user be trying to accomplish when say:
+ Viewing just their Home Task list in a Calendar view?
+ Viewing the Dashboard in the Calendar app area in a Calendar view?
+ Viewing their Home collection as a generic Table as opposed to as
a sectioned Dashboard?
Here's a use case I use all the time in other applications: Suppose I
have the office calendar and I'm looking for a meeting that I
remembered Philippe scheduled sometime, but I don't remember when. I
switch to Table view, sort by Who, scroll to Philippe in the Who
column, find my meeting. Select it. Switch back to Calendar view and
scroll to the selection.
I can imagine lots of other useful scenarios, e.g. looking at my In
box in Calendar view to see if spam arrives late at night. But I've
learned over the years that debating the usefulness of a feature in
an email or on a whiteboard is never as useful as letting people try
it out -- which is just another argument for getting experience with
it in Preview.
Finally, I don't think we need to worry about people criticizing
Preview because we removed 4 menu items that do the same thing as the
buttons in toolbar and replaced them with 3 items that do something
potentially useful. Especially since most casual users will probably
never notice the menu items exist.
John
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Open Source Applications Foundation "Design" mailing list
http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/design
