One thing that has always bugged me about Notes is the negative logic. "Hide when"/"Do not maintain unread marks"/etc. In newer properties, I've been making that logic positive, and in a few cases in the application properties editor, I have reversed previously negative logic to be positive. So "Do not maintain unread marks" turns in to "Maintain unread marks."
The problem... Whether or not to update the infobox. In an ideal world, sure (probably). In the beta, you'll see we have not yet changed the infobox, just moved the application properties editor rendition to be positive. Long term, the db infobox will be obsolete, so I am a bit hesitant to put much investment there. But will the inconsistency here be so bad that we really have to change the infobox? Personally I'd rather put the energy elsewhere, but if the new UI differing from the old UI is really going to be an issue, it is certainly possible to align them (though that would ripple through documentation, etc).
Thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I would not change the infoboxes. First of all, the effort can be used in other places instead. Second, instead of first having to re-learn the info boxes, and then learning the new property page, just have us re-learn things once.
Can you even make this transitions for hide-whens? That sounds like it's going to be tough, given how many formulas are written against the positive outcome meaning "don't show."
Transitioning to a consistent positive switch interface will be nice, though. And I agree with Karl -- don't waste time on the InfoBox. We know it's the deprecated interface. (But expect to take a LOT of grief from a select few when you don't update the infobox.)
I'm trying to picture the reversal of so many controls...
ENABLE background agents for this database
Allow URL Open
Allow replication (as opposed to temporarily disable replication)
Mark modified documents as unread
Overwrite free space
Support specialized response hierarchy
Allow Heading monitoring
Allow Simple search
Permit export of view data
Enable transaction logging
we really can't reverse hide whens at this point (though for xpages it's the visible property!) And as I look at the advanced page, there are a few more I need to reverse the sense of (I'll try to get those in 8.5)!
So the shift to the positive isn't extending beyond app properties and xpages at this point - but is the way I want to move things. All the negative logic just always made my head hurt!
I totally agree about the negative logic. I'm embarrassed to admit that I once wrote a dialog for an application that said "Click OK if you DON'T want to delete these documents, click Cancel to proceed." I was trying to prevent people from clicking OK and deleting docs w/out really reading the dialog. It was ill conceived. I still catch flak for that disaster.
In general, I'd like to see you continue in the direction you've been taking on this. It's hard to imagine all of the effects of something like this, though, so it will be interesting to get my hands on it for the first time.
Don't bother updating the info box. Use the resources elsewhere.
I look forward the day when I don't have to write all my hide-when formulas in the style
! (logic of when to show)
That's the only way I get my head around it sometimes.
Leave the infobox. We got used to it and new folds will use the property page.
:-) stw
Post a Comment