[BitPim-devel] Color coded labels for editable fields

[Joe Pham]

Finally got around to implement an idea Roger suggested a while back: color coded labels for editable fields. The idea is to use colors labels to indicate which fields are applicable (blue), not applicable (red), or not sure (black) to the current phone model. I'm attaching a couple of sample screenshots for comments and/or suggestions.

-Joe Pham


_____________________________________________________________________
Call Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere in the World - FREE!
Free Internet calling from NetZero Voice
Visit http://www.netzerovoice.com today!

[Simon C]

Post by Joe Pham
Finally got around to implement an idea Roger suggested a
while back: color coded labels for editable fields. The idea
is to use colors labels to indicate which fields are
applicable (blue), not applicable (red), or not sure (black)
to the current phone model. I'm attaching a couple of sample
screenshots for comments and/or suggestions.

Looks really good. Is it worth adding a note at the bottom of the screen to
explain the color coding to the user, something like "Note: Fields in red
are not supported by your phone."
What interface did you define between the phone classes and the GUI to
determine the fields supported by the phone?

Simon

[Joe Pham]

Is it worth adding a note at the bottom of the screen to explain the >color coding to the user, something like "Note: Fields in red are
not supported by your phone."

We can, but I already have it in the Help.

What interface did you define between the phone classes and the GUI
to determine the fields supported by the phone?

By defining a dict in your phone profile class. You can take a look at com_lgvx9800 for an example.

-Joe Pham



_____________________________________________________________________
Call Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere in the World - FREE!
Free Internet calling from NetZero Voice
Visit http://www.netzerovoice.com today!

[Simon C]

Is it worth adding a note at the bottom of the screen to explain the

Post by Simon C
color coding to the user, something like "Note: Fields in

red are not supported by your phone."
We can, but I already have it in the Help.

On-screen hints can make a GUI easier to understand and avoid RTMF issues,
but it is a difficult choice as extra text will clutter the screen. How
about tooltips?

Unrelated to these changes (present in 0.8.06), I noticed that the phonebook
editor dialog does not correctly re-size the controls on some of the tabs
(number, url and a few others) when adding items. If you edit a contact,
goto the numbers and press add it will re-size all the numbers fields to
some hard coded value instead of using the available space. Resizing the
dialog will cause the controls to be resized to fit the available space.

Simon

[John O'Shaughnessy]

Post by Simon C

Is it worth adding a note at the bottom of the screen to explain the

Post by Simon C
color coding to the user, something like "Note: Fields in

red are not supported by your phone."
We can, but I already have it in the Help.

On-screen hints can make a GUI easier to understand and avoid RTMF issues,
but it is a difficult choice as extra text will clutter the screen. How
about tooltips?

Tooltips are a good idea.

[Stephanie]

Post by John O'Shaughnessy

Post by Simon C

Is it worth adding a note at the bottom of the screen to explain the

Post by Simon C
color coding to the user, something like "Note: Fields in

red are not supported by your phone."
We can, but I already have it in the Help.

On-screen hints can make a GUI easier to understand and avoid RTMF issues,
but it is a difficult choice as extra text will clutter the screen. How
about tooltips?

Tooltips are a good idea.

How about also going with a few settings that would toggle the handling
of unsupported fields:

[ ] Highlight [ ] Disable [ ] Hide features and [ ] fields not supported
by phone.
[ ] Enforce device field limits
[ ] Warn on records that won't syncronize properly to phone.

I'd suggest that the field background color reflect the color coded
label too - a red background
would be very appropriate for a field that BitPim handles perfectly, but
the phone can't handle.

I'd also consider setting up some sort of profile functionality that can
inteligently handle keeping
two or more devices with different restrictions syncronized - ie, use
the least common subset of
features between the devices so that sync issues and truncation issues
don't have to happen.

[Roger Binns]

Post by Stephanie
How about also going with a few settings that would toggle the handling

I am generally against multiple modes of operation as it is just more
ways for things to go wrong, more confusing for the user, more code
paths and interactions.

I keep thinking there must be a better way of doing this. What is the
harm in BitPim accurately storing more information than the current
phone can take? How does it actually affect someone when a subset
is written to the phone? How can we alleviate that?

Read this article:

http://cooper.com/articles/art_goal_directed_design.htm

Something that would be nice is working out how to get the
display stuff out of the code. That would allow for easy
translations, as well as text mode and command line operation.
If we had that, then multiple modes of operation would be
a lot less brittle and many different variations could be
experimented with.

Roger

[Joe Pham]

Post by Stephanie

Post by John O'Shaughnessy
Tooltips are a good idea.

How about also going with a few settings that would toggle the
[ ] Highlight [ ] Disable [ ] Hide features and [ ] fields not
supported by phone.
[ ] Enforce device field limits
[ ] Warn on records that won't syncronize properly to phone.
I'd suggest that the field background color reflect the color coded
label too - a red background would be very appropriate for a field
that BitPim handles perfectly, but the phone can't handle.

All good suggestions, we'll consider them one at a time.

Post by Stephanie
I'd also consider setting up some sort of profile functionality that
can inteligently handle keeping two or more devices with different
restrictions syncronized - ie, use the least common subset of
features between the devices so that sync issues and truncation >issues don't have to happen.

Not sure what you have in minde for this.

-Joe Pham



_____________________________________________________________________
Call Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere in the World - FREE!
Free Internet calling from NetZero Voice
Visit http://www.netzerovoice.com today!