Re: Project Groups - UI proposal ready

Jan Rojcek <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.java.netbeans.user-interface
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 26 Oct 2006, at 02:05, Jesse Glick wrote:

> I have a module for implementing groups of projects which I propose  
> to include in the IDE. Please review and comment:
>
> http://www.netbeans.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=50683
> http://projects.netbeans.org/buildsys/groups.html

I've already risen my concerns about the advanced functionality in  
Issuezilla:

Groups behave differently when opening/closing projects. That can be  
a problem. If the user switches to some other group and back, I guess  
she/he always wants to get back to the same set of open projects. I  
also question usefulness of the "master" and "folder" groups. The  
fact that they have strictly defined content and behavior wouldn't  
actually work for users.

I propose to keep just the simple free group that tracks open/closed  
projects in the group.

The current "Advanced" check box doesn't work from UI perspective. If  
I understand correctly it only turns on/off the types of groups in  
"New Group" dialog. Therefor the switch should be in the dialog  
(somehow). If we want to keep the advanced mode for now to measure  
how many users use it to change UI accordingly then I would suggest  
to have all the group types available by default, get user feedback  
and then evaluate whether we want to keep it there.

I personally would *remove* the advanced groups if we don't have data  
saying explicitly that users use them.

I agree with the point of visualizing the current group. I can see 3  
places where to display it:

- Projects window tab - might not work well in the default window  
layout. There's probably not enough space in the tab.
- Root node in the Project window - only visible when the user uses  
groups (other group than "none" is selected). Isn't really visible if  
the user scrolls the expanded project tree down.
- Title bar - there's enough space, but it's a bit far away from the  
project window

Currently the radio button of a group is disabled under certain  
condition. I understand the intention, but it's nonstandard and not  
really obvious why it's so. I suggest to keep it always enabled.

When a master group is selected and I open a new project, it should  
be somehow visible that this project isn't actually part of the  
group. Maybe grayed project icon, or it would open up underneath a  
node saying "Temporary" or something like that.

-Jano
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