InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by lucasd on 2010/12/01 21:38

Armando has already discusses auto-complete for dropdown lists. Here's are two auto-completion features I would love to see:

Auto-completion for 'cloning'. When entering text in a new item, I would like to be able to press ctrl-enter (or something like that) to bring up a list of all already existing items matching the string. Pressing enter on any item would create a 'clone' of that item (such that it would assign the item as a child of whatever item is parent to the place I am entering text).
- Issues/questions
  - I'm imagining this as an efficient way of making an already-existing item into a child of another item. But I'm not sure what would happen when entering text at top-level.
  - What would happen when there are multiple items with the exact same text? Ideally, there would be a way to show "context-parents" in the auto-completion list in order to differentiate.
- Other thoughts
  - Going even further, eventually the feature could be made even more robust so that there could be an option to trigger an auto-complete list for "match anywhere" instead of just "match beginning".
  - Note that this feature would be fundamentally different from auto-completion for field values in other columns, because here, instead of just supplying a value, we would instead be defining the item as a 'clone' of an already existing item, along with all the meta-data for that already-existing item. I think it would make sense to make the behaviour I am describing the default for auto-completion in the the "Item" column, where for other columns auto-completion would simply copy the already-existing value.
  - For my purposes, 'cloning' is all I would want in most cases, but I could imagine that some people might also want the option to create a 'copy' of the already-existing item instead of a 'clone'. (Sorry if 'clone' isn't the right word; it's just what I'm used to from other outliners.)
Auto-completion for linking. This would simply be a more efficient way of creating hyperlinks within grids. One would be able to write the beginning of a link string "<a href=", then press ctrl-enter (or something like that) to bring up an auto-completion list. Pressing enter on any item would create a link to that item. Ideally, there would be an option to either use the text of the item as the visible text for the link, or to enter some other text as the title for the link.

Both these options could make IQ even more awesome, I think. What do others think?

Comments

Both great ideas !

I would probably be more interested in the copy version of idea #1 - but if it's possible at all I dont see why an option cant be given in the dialogue.

On a technical note:

do other outliners really use the word clone for showing an item in a new location?

This has been avoided here because, after all, a clone is - by definition - a copy

[quote=lucasd]

Auto-completion for 'cloning'. When entering text in a new item, I would like to be able to press ctrl-enter (or something like that) to bring up a list of all already existing items matching the string. Pressing enter on any item would create a 'clone' of that item (such that it would assign the item as a child of whatever item is parent to the place I am entering text).
- Issues/questions
  - I'm imagining this as an efficient way of making an already-existing item into a child of another item. But I'm not sure what would happen when entering text at top-level.
  - What would happen when there are multiple items with the exact same text? Ideally, there would be a way to show "context-parents" in the auto-completion list in order to differentiate.

[/quote]

~ At toplevel the current grid source would be added to the item - I dont know what would happen with complex grid sources

~ I imagine "multiple items with the exact same text" would make it very challenging - maybe if itemparent field was shown but they could also be multiple top-level-items....

EDIT/ cant seem to fix the formatting [Now fixed : 2010 12 02 -- 09 43]

I like auto completion and the like (search as you type, etc.), so I like the idea.

Some cons :

- this seems like it would probably be problematic to implement in bigger DB / grids (depending on where the auto complete fetches its data : whole DB or current grid) : performance wise, filtering 1000s of items instantly can only be CPU itensive...

- I'm afraid that this would make the comprehension of multiple parent/grid "linking" (what you call "cloning") less transparent (auto completion isn't used for that purpose) -- it's already hard to understand for most users. At the same time, it might somewhat simplify the process.

- As you said, when multiple items share the same name, it becomes more complex. Showing the main context parent is an option but... when an item already has multiple parents, one parent (the main parent) doesn't tell much. I guess that in these cases you could simply use the other "traditional" ways to link an item.

Some pros :

- Probably a gain in productivity, depending on the amount of items being filtered, and if you're only linking one item at a time... (When you're ctr+drag-dopping an item, you can link several at once which can't really be beaten in terms of speed)

- the process of linking items would be simplified as you wouldn't have to navigate to another grid/space , click + ctrl drag & Drop OR copy/paste, etc. But you'd just have start typing, etc.

P.S. : As for auto completion for linking : I also have suggested in the past to be able to just ALT + drag and drop an item to create a link to it. (I think it's in Mantis). That would be convenient too.

Would it be helpful to add this to mantis before it gets lost in the form ?

Yes, probably.

I'll do a Mantis session during the weekend to add all that wasn't added during the week. (Won't add what's already been fixed/added).

If others want to assist... you're welcome!

MANTIS

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Auto-completion for 'cloning' (creating item to parent links) and Hyperlinking

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