OK, we'll go with Dan's suggestion.
...Bryan
(More notes below, for clarification)
Mimi Yin wrote:
On May 17, 2007, at 9:10 AM, Bryan Stearns wrote:
As I see it, the problem with doing "?" for valid times that don't
fit the end-time-must-be-after-start-time rule is that the follow-on
behavior can be confusing: the user might ignore the question mark,
or might change another time field and be surprised when the
previously-entered-but-rule-breaking time gets spontaneously
replaced. There's a serious risk here of exchanging one confusing
behavior for another.
I'm not sure I'm following. Isn't this the case whenever we throw up
the "?" because the user enters an invalid date? Or am I introducing a
new case with my proposal?
The new case is that a validly-formatted end time could get a "?", if
(when combined with the end date field) it doesn't happen to be at or
before the start date/time.
In the situation that spawned this bug, Priscilla might then try to fix
the problem by editing the end date. The new confusing thing is that
when finished editing the date field, the original value in the time
field would be reloaded there, replacing her edited value and the "?" -
and I'd bet she'd file another bug saying that that was a surprise (and
she'd be right).
Also, this hasn't been mentioned yet: we've talked before about
replacing the four-pane time/date-entry widgets with something more
sophisticated - that's certainly an option post-Preview, and this
adds fuel to that fire; if we're going to do that, reworking this now
is a bad investment.
Yes, the date/time entry widget might change. But that might not
happen until after 1.0? It might also make a great community project.
I guess what I'm saying is that what we do for Preview will most
likely stick around for a while.
Is throwing up the "?" in this case more of an investment than option
#2? If so, then by all means, let's go with Dan's suggestion.
It's both more of an investment, and (for the reasons mentioned) more of
a risk.
Mimi
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