I was going to do separate e-mails for each point, but now it feels like too many e-mails and I'm being lazy. :-)
mrg On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 12:55 AM, Aristedes Maniatis <a...@maniatis.org> wrote: > > 2. A three panel view. So, Michael's design but with the additional > properties to the right rather than at the bottom. > > This sort of approach is common in email. Tree of mailboxes to the left. > List of messages in the middle and the details to the right. We'd have > domain/map/objentities in the left tree. Attributes in the middle. Options > to the right. > > Pros: > > * Left tree is simpler than in option 1 > * Shows hierarchy better than option 0 (Michael's mockup) > > > Cons > * Middle panel (list of attributes) would need to have fewer columns than > we do now in order to keep the width to a minimum. > * Not as flexible as option 1 > * combination of tree and multi-panel approach might be confusing > I thought about doing this, too, but it felt like it would be too wide and I like the idea of the attributes table showing me a lot of the information at-a-glance. (Admittedly, can't really get the JavaDocs/etc in the table, but at least the names/types/locking can be seen quite readily.) You mention e-mail...my Apple Mail layout is set up very similar to this prototype's layout (mailboxes left, messages in mailbox upper right, message thread for selected message lower right). I suppose with wide-screen monitors more popular now, three columns might be doable, but I think there is a lot of value in seeing the names/types/locking information pretty readily, too, without needing additional work. > 3. Move the additional options (javadoc, annotations, etc) into floating > windows like the Relationship Inspector. > > Pros: > > * Least effort > * Yeah, nothing else.. its a pretty horrible UI choice. > > Cons: > > * Ugh > I kind of despise those floating inspectors. :-) It feels like hidden information that should be more immediately presented. I feel I've spent too much of my life bringing up those inspectors... I had a quick go at mocking some of these up, but spent so much time > fighting the tools that I didn't get very far. Michael, if convenient can > you send through your SceneBuilder files to play with? > I can absolutely share. Do you want just the FXML files? I still have re-factoring work to do (the ObjEntity tab views are all in one FXML file currently, and I want to split it out into separate view files/controllers, for example -- one controller/view per tab), so I'm expecting them to change quite a bit. My hope is that sometime next week I'll have it cleaned up enough to share all of it (Java, READMEs, etc). Keep in mind this is very much a prototype/hack and I'm learning JavaFX as I go (only spent ~4 days on it so far). I think the other problem to solve is the icons. Myself, I typically use > Cayenne Modeler once every few months. So every time I use it, I'm clicking > on icons to try and remember which one is which. Is blob-blob-plus a new > relationship? > Tooltips are required for all of these. Even when I've "lived" in CM, I still used the tooltips a lot...
