The problem is simple here... but maybe it isn't after all.
Explanations :
There are 2 modes when you interact with the grid :
1- select mode : item is gray : you can select the full item or multiple columns.
If you're pasting in select mode, you're pasting in the outline, so to speak, and so many options can appear as there isn't just one way to paste. (When the mouse is shown as an arrow, you're in select mode. Seems simple enough, but maybe not)
2- edit mode : cursor is flashing in cell.
If you're in edit mode, the dialog with the past options won't appear as you're basically just pasting text in a cell... Hence the weird results you're getting. (Note : When the mouse appears as a caret, you go straight in edit mode when you click... seems intuitive to me)
There's only one tricky thing as far as I'm concerned. you can only drag and drop an item when the mouse appears as a caret. I don't know if Pierre can fix that, or if it even should be fixed. Not sure.
Details about special copy/paste
Now, as I explained in another thread, othere are 2 different copy and paste modes. normal Copy/paste and "Copy/paste special" (look at the edit menu).
Copy/paste special (ctrl+shift+c & ctrl+shift+v on my machine) will always show you options dialogs.
Note that you don't really need to use special copy/paste directly : when you select a full item (click on the # field) or are in selection mode and you copy/paste, you'll always be presented with the special copy dialog.
There's only one special case AFAIK : when only one cell is selected, IQ will always just copy the cell's content -- this is to ease workflow when all you want is to copy some text "here" and rapidly paste it "there".
======
If you look at your screencast, you'll see that each time you're pasting, you're pasting inside a cell, while it's in edit mode.
One question :
- What else do you want IQ to do ?
I honestly don't know what the solution would be to make things simpler. This has been debated over and over. I know Pierre was eventually supposed to add the option to paste and item as child of the select parent (not there yet -- right now you have to select a sub item to be able paste under a parent)
Maybe you'll have an idea of how to modify things.
[edited : clarified structure of my explanations.]
I see in your screen cast that you seemed to be able to be in both modes at the same time : 2 items were selected and the third one was in edit mode. This is probably a bug. Maybe we shouldn't be able to get into edit mode when already in select mode and shift/ctrl is pressed.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed explanation. I studied your reply for 20-30 minutes, but still can't figure out how to do a copy and paste. Let me go away, get some sleep, and try again another day.
Something seems seriously wrong to me that a simple ol' copy and paste has to be so difficult. You might recall while I was writing up bugs on the Gantt chart stuff, I kept talking about the fickle cell selection. I seriously thought that cell selection was broken...I had no idea cell selection could possibly work the way you describe it. I know to you guys that have been around awhile this is simple and intuitive. Believe me as a new user that has done thousands of copy and paste operations in every imaginable kind of app, this is not intuitive.
[quote=davet] a simple ol' copy and paste [/quote]
I'm NOT trying to be smart here -
by a simple copy & paste, it looks like you mean to make an exact copy of the item that you can paste elsewhere in IQ.
which would be #3 on this shot
That (and #4) should probably be moved to the top of the list and maybe simplified some more,
e.g.
Copy Selected Items
make an exact copy of item(s) for pasting within IQ (XML format)
This dialog only shows when an item is fully selected (i.e. not just one or more cells selected). Like excel, you have to click on the number column on the left in order to select the full item.
Another problem you encountered was that, at times, you only had cells selected when you copied - like in excel, the contents of those cells will be copied.
Another was pasting when in edit mode - things will then get pasted in the cell which is in edit mode - as Armando says it looks like it goes into edit mode too easily.
it looks like you mean to make an exact copy of the item that you can paste elsewhere in IQ.
which would be #3 on this shot
[/quote]
Tom,
There is new terminology introduced here. Who ever heard of and "Exact copy?" What the hell is that? A copy is a copy is a copy in my world...hell everyone knows what a copy is.
And what is all that mumbo jumbo about XML...I don't think the average user even knows what XML is. I hope it is clear to Pierre that this app is only going to appeal to those who are not faint at heart...and who are very technical people. How could the average user ever make a decision on what to select in that dialog box? How many average users even know what a tab-indented outline is let along XML? That dialog box along is enough to make a new user put their tail between their legs and run like hell out of the IQ world. I have run away twice and come back just because I think there is something valuable here. I know I have enough perseverance to eventually figure this thing out...that is with the help of guys like you and Armando. But I keep questioning the survival of this app and my judgement for trying to learn it.
If Pierre can live with a small number of users and the target population for this app is clearly defined as rock scientists or those with extreme patience and one hell of a lot of time on their hands, then things are hunky-dory.
Thanks again for your help. I think I need a few days away from this app, and then come back again when I'm in a better frame of mind.
Thanks for those comments Dave. We posted at the same time
Concerning this dialog, it seems that the terminology needs to be made simpler. Maybe something like :
In the selected items, what do you want to copy :
1- Outline column only
2- Selected columns only
3- Full items
4- Full items and their sub-items
The parenthesis might be useless, I'm not sure.
[/quote]
Part of the issue is that IQ is both an outliner and a grid (like excel). That is part of its greatness (like ecco), but it leads to confusion in situations like this. The example app that davet had was just an outliner, so the situation is simpler. You are always working with items/rows.
So I think we should have the idea that based on your selection you are doing grid things or item things. With that in mind, I would say something like the following:
If you have full items selected then it copies items with their children (current #4), that is consistent with other outliners. You'll note that davet tried that, but got burned by going into edit mode. For full items there is a copy as (or copy special) which has three options:
Items
Items without children
Items for export (tab indented)
If you have cells selected then it copies cells (current #2). That is consistent with excel and with other gird apps. There is no Copy As for grid selection.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed explanation. I studied your reply for 20-30 minutes, but still can't figure out how to do a copy and paste. Let me go away, get some sleep, and try again another day.
Something seems seriously wrong to me that a simple ol' copy and paste has to be so difficult. You might recall while I was writing up bugs on the Gantt chart stuff, I kept talking about the fickle cell selection. I seriously thought that cell selection was broken...I had no idea cell selection could possibly work the way you describe it. I know to you guys that have been around awhile this is simple and intuitive. Believe me as a new user that has done thousands of copy and paste operations in every imaginable kind of app, this is not intuitive.
Thanks for being so patient and supportive.
Dave
[/quote]
Ultimately, the important thing here is to be able to pinpoint exactly what's hard in the copy paste mechanism, cell selection etc. so that it can be fixed.
About your problem... Maybe tom's post will be easier to understand. I could be a language thing -- I normally speak French.
In any case, my point is simply that if you're in edit mode (the cursor is flashing in the cell -- press F2 or click when the mouse cursor is a caret 2-- don't know how that to say that more clearly) what you paste will be pasted in the cell. If you're not in edit mode, you'll be pasting in the outline and will be getting the copy/paste dialogs you were seeing.
I see in your screen cast that you seemed to be able to be in both modes at the same time : 2 items were selected and the third one was in edit mode. This is probably a bug. Maybe we shouldn't be able to get into edit mode when already in select mode and shift/ctrl is pressed.
Pierre ?
[/quote]
Excel lets you do this. it uses the selection to control tabbing and find/replace scope. That said, I think its confusing in Excel also. IMHO, You shouldn't be able to be in edit mode on a cell while selecting other cells. Going in to edit mode turn off the cell selection.
And dragging shouldn't initiate edit mode.
And while I am at it, right-click shouldn't initiate edit mode either.
I see in your screen cast that you seemed to be able to be in both modes at the same time : 2 items were selected and the third one was in edit mode. This is probably a bug. Maybe we shouldn't be able to get into edit mode when already in select mode and shift/ctrl is pressed.
[/quote]
Just a quick feedback about this one.
Pierre confirmed the bug before going on vacations: we shouldn't be able to enter edit mode when in selection mode + ctrl or shift is pressed. If this bug wasn't there, Dave probably wouldn't have experienced all these pasting problems.
Anyway... The good news is that it's fixed. The bad news is that we won't be seing it until a couple weeks.
( P.S. : I think this bug appeared in version S when "Click anywhere on the cell which has the focus enters edit mode" was changed/implemented :)
EDIT : The workaround I currently use to avoid frustration, when I want to select and not edit :
- always select items using the # column
- OR assign a shortcut key to select full item (mine is ctrl+shift+alt+s)
....and then go on with the selection of other items using ctrl or shift + click.
When in "full item" selection mode (vs multi-columns) , there's no problem.
While we are at it, let's talk about paste. It seems broken to me also.
I’m specifically driven up the wall by the use case of copying multiple cells and pasting them.
If you copy several cells from inside IQ and then paste in IQ it will give you this dialog - http://screencast.com/t/moGLYfqntTMR. Asking you want to paste the copied lines in every cell or create new items.
What it should do is paste them as grid items, as it does if you copy multiple grid items from IQ.
Well, I don't think it's broken -- it's just offering you an option.
The thing is that you’re considering only the situation where you're copying an bunch of tree cells and then paste them back in IQ. Fine. But this dialog is also used when you're copying paragraphs or lines from elsewhere and paste them in IQ. Then, I find the dialog very useful as it often protects me from creating 10s of new items when all I want is to paste some text in a cell!
That said, if users prefer to not have option when pasting from elsewhere, it's fine too. They'll just have to remember to enter "edit-mode" in a cell first or they could end up with lots of new items, and will potentially have to wait till IQ finishes the item creation operation which can mean a while depending on the complexity of the grid.
Edit : There's also another aspect. How would you conveniently copy the same clipboard text (which could contain CR/LF) in several selected cells(e.g. : 1000) if you don't have the option allowing you to do so ? You'd paste in each cell one after the other ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Windows XP Home Edition, Service pack 2 Dell Vostro 1500, Ram:3gb, CPU:Core2Duo T7500 2.2ghz
Comments
While we are at it, let's talk about paste. It seems broken to me also.
I’m specifically driven up the wall by the use case of copying multiple cells and pasting them.
If you copy several cells from inside IQ and then paste in IQ it will give you this dialog - http://screencast.com/t/moGLYfqntTMR. Asking you want to paste the copied lines in every cell or create new items.
What it should do is paste them as grid items, as it does if you copy multiple grid items from IQ.
d
The thing is that you’re considering only the situation where you're copying an bunch of tree cells and then paste them back in IQ. Fine. But this dialog is also used when you're copying paragraphs or lines from elsewhere and paste them in IQ. Then, I find the dialog very useful as it often protects me from creating 10s of new items when all I want is to paste some text in a cell!
That said, if users prefer to not have option when pasting from elsewhere, it's fine too. They'll just have to remember to enter "edit-mode" in a cell first or they could end up with lots of new items, and will potentially have to wait till IQ finishes the item creation operation which can mean a while depending on the complexity of the grid.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows XP Home Edition, Service pack 2
Dell Vostro 1500, Ram:3gb, CPU:Core2Duo T7500 2.2ghz