RuleEditWindow: re-arrange tests/actions

[humdingerb]

RuleEditWindow: re-arrange tests/actions

[owenca]

I don't quite understand this. Could you please explain further?

[humdingerb]

(What's below applies equally to the 'test sections' ("When").

With the "Add" button, you can add actions in the "Do" section of the rule window. After you've added a few, you can't remove e.g. the second action after you added a third. The "Remove" button always deletes the last added action.
Also, you cannot change their order. Though that's maybe not as important, I dunno...

I suppose "+" and "-" buttons to the right of the text field of an action instead of the "Add/Remove" buttons could work. Then you can exactly say which action to remove or where to add a new one (below the one you clicked the "+").
That way, re-arranging also becomes tolerable, by "+" a new action where you need it and copy&pasting and then removing the action you like to move.

[owenca]

We can remove (and add after) the row in which the text field has the keyboard focus. That way, we wouldn't have to add the "+" and "-" button. What do you think?

[humdingerb]

I'd prefer the +/- buttons because it's so much more obvious.
The +/- widget that's used in the Screen preferences would do nicely. If the rest of the buttons ("Type", "is" etc.) were BPopUpMenus instead of those misused BButtons, we could have a slick GUI. :)

[owenca]

I am thinking about redesigning this window and make it a BColumnListView if the class can be extended to support additional ColumnTypes. If feasible, a +/- button for every row would look repetitive? Wouldn't it better to have one +/- button below the view?

[humdingerb]

I'm not sure you can put popup menus into a "cell" of a BColumnListView. And I don't know if a BColumnListView is really suited for this. Mabe if you could create a crude mockup...
I was imagining something more like the "Find.." by attibute panel, only with those +/- buttons at each row instead of the remove/add buttons below. The Find... panel too, suffers from the you-can-only-add/remove-from-the-bottom-of-the-list...

[owenca]

Never mind. I thought it would be easy to add new column types to ColumnTypes.cpp.

I was thinking about making the Test view (the When box) a list view with one test per row. Then the user would be able to navigate to any row using the up/down arrow keys. The current row would be highlighted, so one pair of add/remove buttons below the list view would work. (Add would mean insert before the current row.) Same with the Do box.

[owenca]

A BListView-like approach:

The highlighted row can change with a mouse click or the up/down keys, and a vertical bar can be added to scroll the rows.

I guess it would be tedious, if not terribly difficult, to implement this comparing to using a +/- button for each row.

[humdingerb]

I still prefer the +/- buttons for every row. Even if you put a "knobbly" widget like the Deskbar tray has to move the Deskbar to different locations, it's not obvious that you can re-order rows and how.
It's also better suited for keyboard navigation.

[owenca]

This issue can be closed as it's fixed by @humdingerb with 33c22ea.

[humdingerb]

Not really. This tickets is about re-arranging the test/actions in the "Edit rule" window.
Frankly, I think it's too much hassle to implement. And now that we can add/remove specific rows of tests/actions with the +/- buttons, I don't see such a pressing need for it...

[owenca]

Oops! I got the two mixed up.