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Bug 106252 - bookmark keyword UI
bookmark keyword UI
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: epiphany
Classification: Core
Component: Interface
unspecified
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: Marco Pesenti Gritti
Marco Pesenti Gritti
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2003-02-16 20:37 UTC by Sean Middleditch
Modified: 2004-12-22 21:47 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Sean Middleditch 2003-02-16 20:37:18 UTC
The current interface of editing bookmark keywords is a little confusing. 
It's a text entry of words separated by whitespace; however, there is no
"intuitive" reason for a user to suspect that.  How should I know they are
not separated by commas, like e-mail address in a To: field, or whatnot?

My suggestion would be to use a table/list of keywords.  I was originally
thinking having a drop-down box with a list of the previous keywords, plus
having it be modifiable so you could add new keywords, but then I also
thought having two lists of keywords (available ones, and ones set for the
bookmark) and being able to drag-n-drop between the two.  And of course a
way of entering in an all new keyword.

I tried mocking up some examples, but my Glade skills seem to be severely
lacking...
Comment 1 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-02-19 16:59:47 UTC
*** Bug 106138 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 2 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-03-01 02:58:17 UTC
I have the impression designing a good UI for this is going to be a
pain :/. I would like to keep the thing the simpler is possible ....
but that seem hard.
About your proposal. The dropdown: how would the selection of multiple
keywords work ?.
The two lists: I'm not very keen of it because it seem add some
complexity. I like the new bookmark dialog to be small ... and where
would we put that in the bookmarks editor dialog ?
I thinked quite a bit to this, but I have not been able to find
something really good ... I was also tempted to go back to a normal
folder approach (would result more or less in a clone of safari
bookmarks), but I feel the ability to assign more than one keyword to
bookmarks very useful ..
Well brainstorming at 4.00, forgive me ;)
Mockups would really help ;)
Comment 3 Sean Middleditch 2003-03-01 03:07:46 UTC
heh, yes, understood.

For the drop-down, in ASCII art (my glade skills *really* suck):

-----------
Keyword: [_________][v] [Add]

  KEYWORD 1
  KEYWORD 2
  KEYWORD 3
----------

So the list there (KEYWORD 1- KEYWORD 3) are the keywords currently on
the bookmark.  To add a new one, you'd type it in the text entry there
(next to "Keyword:") and hit Enter, or click the [Add] button.

Now, that text entry would also be a drop-down.  It'd be just like the
URL/Location bar.  Except instead of showing "history" in the
drop-down, you'd just an ordered list of all the keywords the user has
ever used.  Also add in tab-completion (or the auto-completion the
location bar has), and entry gets to be really easy.

Adding a new keyword is simple. (No need to worry about how to
separate the keywords).  Key phrases (i.e., keywords with spaces)
woudl be possible, since space wouldn't be a separator.  It'd be
easier to add existing keywords, because of the drop-down list and/or
auto-completion.

For last, the example would be: I use the keywords Development, News,
and Comics.  If I add a new site (say, Penny Arcade, a comic) I'd
start typing the keyword "Comic" - it'd match that o n the C (only one
keyword starts with C) and fill in the rest for me, like the location
bar does with history.  This makes it quicker and easier to enter
keywords (type a little bit, hit enter to add, type another keyword,
hit enter to add, etc.), plus it helps avoid me screwing up and
mistyping "Comics" as "Comcs" or something.
Comment 4 Sean Middleditch 2003-03-01 03:09:09 UTC
oh, and of course, yuo'd be able to delete keyword by right(context)
clicking on a keyword in the list, and selecting delete, or selecting
it and pressing the delete key, or maybe just by dragging it out of
the window.
Comment 5 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-03-10 18:15:01 UTC
I like the idea in general. My concern is: what would happen in the
bookmark editor :/
I posted a mail about the whole bookmarks system on epiphany-dev btw,
if you are not subscribed there are archives on the web site. Just
saying it in case you are interested to contribute to the discussion
(obviously this problem is part of the discussion).
Comment 6 Sean Middleditch 2003-03-10 18:28:56 UTC
Well, the bookmark editor would have to be laid out similarly, I
think.  I have the picture in my head, i just need to figure out how
to get Glade to make it look that way.  ;-)

I do read over the archives every few days or so for new messages, and
read the bookmarks thread.  If i have anything other than what is
here, I'll state it there. ;-)

I don't recall off the top of my head, was a link to this bug posted
in the thread on the list?
Comment 7 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-03-10 18:36:03 UTC
Ok, I was saying that because I think the editor should be kept very
very simple. It's main role in current design is not to edit but
actually to browse the collection. That means for example that we cant
make the lists too small ...
Thanks so much to be helping with this. I consider this current worst
epiphany bug :/

I posted a link just now.
Comment 8 Sean Middleditch 2003-03-10 18:48:52 UTC
Hmm.. perhaps the editor and viewer should be split?  I.e., have the
list of bookmarks, adn along with the Jump To butotn, also have an
Edit button?

I don't actually have Epiphany on this machine (RedHat8, too lazy to
get all Mozilla and all built here ;-)  but when I get home tonight if
I remember I'll try and play around with it a bit, think something up.
 ^,^
Comment 9 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-03-10 20:19:26 UTC
Interesting, what about this:

Buttons:
"Properties..." "Remove" "Cancel" "Go To"

The two lists and search as we have now.

A Location label (this is because showing the label in the list add
quite a bit of clutter for something you dont usually want to see often).

Maybe a Keywords label (not sure if this info is necessary but could
be useful, comma separated maybe ?).

Some editing functionalities can be performed in the editor. I think
this is pretty important, having all in a separate dialog doesnt help
you against the laziness of not organizing your bookmarks ;)
So they would be:
- Inline title editing
- Inline keyword editing
- Dnd on the keywords to apply one of them to the bookmarks (and here
it's where the keywords label could become useful)

Removing keywords and edit url are left out, but I think we can
consider these secondary tasks.

So the properties buttons would show you something like the new
bookmark dialog + an url entry.
This allow us to have a more verbose keyword editing interface without
being detrimental to the main dialog task (navigate bookmarks).


Another comment about your proposal for new dialog. A thing I dont
like much is that it's a bit more elaborate then a combo in the case
of single folder/topic (like Safari). 
Would be cool if we could avoid the extra step (Click Add button),
when you want just to have it in one folder/keyword/topic.
(Yeah, I suck, I want to add complexity but keep the interface
simplicity :/)
Comment 10 Sean Middleditch 2003-03-10 20:30:30 UTC
I'm not that sure it's even necessary to have the keywords label at
all.  If you want drag-n-drop to add a label in a dialog, I'd think it
makes a lot of sense to have it work the other way around - which mean
syou need to put the Keywords label in another list, which is where
you want the separate dialog for editing.  ;-)

Also, for the complexity of adding a book, I don't think "Add" would
be necessary - just optional.  Kidn of like the Go button on a URL
entry - we know we can just hit Enter, but it's nice for clarity to
newbies. ;-)

Probably the best thing to do is get some working implementations of
several idea and try them out.  List editing versus wholly DnD, etc. 
Things that sound nice in ours heads tend not to work out as well in
practice.  ;-)
Comment 11 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-03-10 20:47:32 UTC
>I'm not that sure it's even necessary to have the keywords label at
>all.  If you want drag-n-drop to add a label in a dialog, I'd think it
>makes a lot of sense to have it work the other way around - which mean
>syou need to put the Keywords label in another list, which is where
>you want the separate dialog for editing.  ;-)

Definately. I was not meaning to drag bookmark there. It's just that
when you drag a bookmark to one of the keywords (in the list), having
some feedback on the result of your action could be nice. Like I drag
"Mpt blog" on "Usability" keyword: "Topic: Blogs" will become "Topic:
Blogs, Usability". I'm not sure if that's necessary, if can be avoided
... better, less clutter ;)

>Also, for the complexity of adding a book, I don't think "Add" would
>be necessary - just optional.  Kidn of like the Go button on a URL
>entry - we know we can just hit Enter, but it's nice for clarity to
>newbies. ;-)

How would it work exactly ? If you select a Topic from the list and
then click OK dialog button it's considered as added to the list ?

>Probably the best thing to do is get some working implementations of
>several idea and try them out.  List editing versus wholly DnD, etc. 
>Things that sound nice in ours heads tend not to work out as well in
>practice.  ;-)

Yeah, for example I'm concerned that inline editing could be annoying
(like you click to open and you accidentally get editing). In that
case it could be better to keep a Title entry ...

What I would like to understand before starting to experiment is if in
general having the more important editing tasks implemented in the
main Bookmarks dialog (in a not invasive way) and a more verbose
editor accessible in a different dialog is an approach that can work well.
Comment 12 Sean Middleditch 2003-03-10 20:54:59 UTC
Hmm, for dnd feedback, I don't have a good suggestion.  Perhaps some
kind of animation - that might be overboard tho.  Altho eye-candy is
always fun.  ;-)

For the topic-addition... I suppose that's a good point.  Perhaps
going back to the idea of a magic list with a special list entry.  Or
maybe a double interface?  Something like a single text entry by
default, and one of those little arrow button things to open up more
of the dialog when clicked (like the mac file selector screenshots
i've seen), to transform the single-text entry into the proposed list
entry.  THe problem there is it might be annoying for a user who
always uses the multuiple topics.  Maybe the usability people have
idea on improving my suggestion...

The separate editing interfaces I'm not personally fond of, but more
from a Must Be Clean anal-retentive syndrome than anything else.  ;-)
 I like the idea of a single editing interface, but your wants (quick
and easy to edit) along with the needs of the complexity of editing a
list of topics - there might not be any other way.  Running into the
end of my usability ideas.  ^,^
Comment 13 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-03-11 19:52:09 UTC
New bookmark
Title:      [                 ]
Topics:     [[X] Bar          ]
            [[ ] Foo          ]
            [[ ] Chocolate    ]
            [ New category    ]

What about this ?
I think there is a way to have checkbox fields in lists.

Compared to a combo for single topic as sum it's not worst prolly:
Pro: you dont have to access the dropdown, some of the categories are
immediately visible
Cons: check the checkboxes is harder then select a dropdown item

Our worst problem is still space I guess, so some of the ideas above
will have to apply, but as you said it's not CLEAN ...

Credits and blames goes to Jorn Baayen.
Comment 14 Marco Pesenti Gritti 2003-03-17 22:16:36 UTC
I posted a proposal about bookmarks on ephy-dev that include changes
about this too.
Comment 15 Dave Bordoley [Not Reading Bug Mail] 2003-03-24 00:42:58 UTC
This is basically fixed in the new ui. Still needs some work, but
other bugs address the issues.