Re: Proposal for UI enhancement: ticket #1624
On Sun, Sep 29, 2019 at 01:34:14PM +0200, Andreas Nicolai wrote:
> Hi Scott,
>
> thanks for your ideas, let me comment below.
> >> I would like to contribute an improvement on this workflow:
>
> >> 1. Button and sub-dialog approach:
> >> - add a button on the dialog "Create label"
> >> - sub-dialog opens and allows selecting existing
> >> sections/subections/images/tables in a tree-view or filtered list-view
> >> (with combo-box filter)
> >> - if a label exists for this section -> close dialog using button
> >> "Select label"
> >
> > It feels like there's an inconsistency here. At this point, the user has
> > clicked on "Create label". But for this situation (the label already
> > exists), there is no label that is created. I wonder if "Cancel" would
> > be the correct choice by the user if they want to use a label that's
> > already been created. Alternatively, perhaps my concern would be
> > addressed by renaming "Create label" to something else (I don't
> > currently have a suggestion).
>
> Indeed, "create label" might be misleading. Actually, the button spawns
> the regular "Insert label" Dialog (class GuiLabel). When confirmed, the
> user has effectively inserted a new label at the selected section/float.
> Maybe "Insert new label" or so might be better (actually, this modal
> "sub-dialog" variant isn't really my favourite).
>
> >> - in cross-reference dialog update list of labels and select newly
> >> created/selected label
> >
> > Why do we need this step? i.e., why not directly insert the label just
> > created? I'm guessing it is because the user might want to change
> > something else in the cross-reference dialog, such as the "Reference
> > Format", but I just wanted to check that that's what you have in mind.
>
> Correct, that was my intention. After the label-selection normally one
> may adjust the reference format (actually, in my experience this happens
> only often when writing text with equation references and section/float
> references).
>
>
> >> 2. "switch selection list"-appraoch:
> >> This facilitates also the approach when users are not 100% sure which
> >> section to reference right now or when the choosen labels are not 100%
> >> clear in what they describe. In such cases the document structure and
> >> section captions can be a better way to select labels.
> >>
> >> Idea: the cross-reference dialog has two selection modes:
> >> a) as before, a groupable, filter-able list of existing labels
> >> b) a groupable list of all existing sections/subsections/images/tables,
> >> with highlighting (bold-face) for all list items that have already
> >> labels defined
> >>
> >> User can switch between both views via
> >> toggle-button/radio-button...Toolbox-Window..?
>
> > Interesting ideas! Just to be clear, instead of "images" I think you
> > mean "figure floats".
>
> Right. But in the tree view/list I would still distinguish between
> Graphics and Tables, since IMHO authors rather think in terms of
> Image-reference and table-references when writing text (such as "see
> Fig. \ref{fig:xxx}" or "in Table \ref{tab:xxx})".
>
> > And perhaps instead of "figures/tables" we can
> > generalize to "floats". I don't understand variant 2 well.
>
> Actually, variant 2 is pretty much what you would expect from a regular
> text processor. You (the author) type text where a reference might be
> needed/appropriate. For example: "This is the same as discussed already
> in section ". Now, you want to insert a referece. You hit the shortcut
> for "insert reference" and a dialog appears. Here, you select the
> section in question, click ok and go on typing. The selection of the
> section is hereby done based on the caption or number and caption, for
> example "2.3 Equations that yield 42", just as it appears in the
> navigation menu.
>
> Since the current functionality is also needed (select label by label
> name), the "select by reference text/number" approach would work better
> for quite a few authors.
>
> Remains the question on how to actually generate the new label name and
> where to insert it.
>
> For may insets a default behaviour could be formulated:
>
> - sections/subsections... : always insert the label right at the begin
> of the inset, before the caption text
>
> - figures/tables/floats in general: always insert the label at the begin
> of the caption text
>
> - listings: require caption to create new label, if caption is present,
> use as for regular floats.
>
> > An extension that might be worth talking about later: currently, does
> > LyX know how to add a label for different layouts? It might, I don't
> > know. In any case, perhaps we would need some layout tag that would tell
> > LyX how to add the label. For example, if a user creates a new layout
> > how does LyX know where to put the \label command? Should it put it in
> > one of the arguments or in the main chunk? I don't know much about
> > LaTeX. Perhaps this isn't needed at all.
>
> > I would
> > suggest waiting
Re: Proposal for UI enhancement: ticket #1624
Hi Scott,
thanks for your ideas, let me comment below.
>> I would like to contribute an improvement on this workflow:
>> 1. Button and sub-dialog approach:
>> - add a button on the dialog "Create label"
>> - sub-dialog opens and allows selecting existing
>> sections/subections/images/tables in a tree-view or filtered list-view
>> (with combo-box filter)
>> - if a label exists for this section -> close dialog using button
>> "Select label"
>
> It feels like there's an inconsistency here. At this point, the user has
> clicked on "Create label". But for this situation (the label already
> exists), there is no label that is created. I wonder if "Cancel" would
> be the correct choice by the user if they want to use a label that's
> already been created. Alternatively, perhaps my concern would be
> addressed by renaming "Create label" to something else (I don't
> currently have a suggestion).
Indeed, "create label" might be misleading. Actually, the button spawns
the regular "Insert label" Dialog (class GuiLabel). When confirmed, the
user has effectively inserted a new label at the selected section/float.
Maybe "Insert new label" or so might be better (actually, this modal
"sub-dialog" variant isn't really my favourite).
>> - in cross-reference dialog update list of labels and select newly
>> created/selected label
>
> Why do we need this step? i.e., why not directly insert the label just
> created? I'm guessing it is because the user might want to change
> something else in the cross-reference dialog, such as the "Reference
> Format", but I just wanted to check that that's what you have in mind.
Correct, that was my intention. After the label-selection normally one
may adjust the reference format (actually, in my experience this happens
only often when writing text with equation references and section/float
references).
>> 2. "switch selection list"-appraoch:
>> This facilitates also the approach when users are not 100% sure which
>> section to reference right now or when the choosen labels are not 100%
>> clear in what they describe. In such cases the document structure and
>> section captions can be a better way to select labels.
>>
>> Idea: the cross-reference dialog has two selection modes:
>> a) as before, a groupable, filter-able list of existing labels
>> b) a groupable list of all existing sections/subsections/images/tables,
>> with highlighting (bold-face) for all list items that have already
>> labels defined
>>
>> User can switch between both views via
>> toggle-button/radio-button...Toolbox-Window..?
> Interesting ideas! Just to be clear, instead of "images" I think you
> mean "figure floats".
Right. But in the tree view/list I would still distinguish between
Graphics and Tables, since IMHO authors rather think in terms of
Image-reference and table-references when writing text (such as "see
Fig. \ref{fig:xxx}" or "in Table \ref{tab:xxx})".
> And perhaps instead of "figures/tables" we can
> generalize to "floats". I don't understand variant 2 well.
Actually, variant 2 is pretty much what you would expect from a regular
text processor. You (the author) type text where a reference might be
needed/appropriate. For example: "This is the same as discussed already
in section ". Now, you want to insert a referece. You hit the shortcut
for "insert reference" and a dialog appears. Here, you select the
section in question, click ok and go on typing. The selection of the
section is hereby done based on the caption or number and caption, for
example "2.3 Equations that yield 42", just as it appears in the
navigation menu.
Since the current functionality is also needed (select label by label
name), the "select by reference text/number" approach would work better
for quite a few authors.
Remains the question on how to actually generate the new label name and
where to insert it.
For may insets a default behaviour could be formulated:
- sections/subsections... : always insert the label right at the begin
of the inset, before the caption text
- figures/tables/floats in general: always insert the label at the begin
of the caption text
- listings: require caption to create new label, if caption is present,
use as for regular floats.
> An extension that might be worth talking about later: currently, does
> LyX know how to add a label for different layouts? It might, I don't
> know. In any case, perhaps we would need some layout tag that would tell
> LyX how to add the label. For example, if a user creates a new layout
> how does LyX know where to put the \label command? Should it put it in
> one of the arguments or in the main chunk? I don't know much about
> LaTeX. Perhaps this isn't needed at all.
> I would
> suggest waiting until another dev comes along and gives a strong signal
> for you to go forward spending more time on this.
Sure, right now I'm still analysing the inset-creation code and try to
figure out, how the "GuiLabel" dialog actually works.
For (my favourite) variant 2, I still
