[OPEN-ILS-DEV] GSoC Proposition

[Mike Rylander]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 12:16 PM, Jason Boyer <jasonb at myjclibrary.org> wrote:
> I understood it that only devs would be adding tags to the settings. I was
> just worried that the new settings page would be just like the current one,
> only with group headings and the same setting in multiple places. I still
> worry that having the same setting in multiple places will be confusing for
> people. Did you have any in mind that would need to be in more than one
> group?

There are certainly settings that can be viewed from different
contexts, but I haven't done any specific analysis yet.  However, if
the amount of effort is about the same to allow one or multiple tags
(and, IMO, it is -- a simple mapping table vs a new column on the
settings type table) then I would prefer to see the ability for
flexibility in the future, even if it's not used immediately.  We can
always constrain the mapping table to one group per setting if we find
that that is really the right thing to do, but we can't easily move
from a column on the type table to a mapping table if we decide later
that we do need multiple groups per setting.

-- 
Mike Rylander
 | VP, Research and Design
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com

> Jason
>
> --
> Jason Boyer, IT Specialist
> Jackson County Public Library
> 303 W Second St
> Seymour, IN 47274
>
> jasonb at myjclibrary.org
> p (812) 522-3412 ext. 227
> f (812) 522-5456
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 8:34 PM, Mike Rylander <mrylander at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 8:03 PM, Mike Rylander <mrylander at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > I was actually thinking that the ui would only show one group/tag woth
>> > of
>> > settings at a time, unlike the gmail inbox, and a dropdown would filter
>> > this.  When the displayed group changes you'd be warned of unsaved
>> > edits, be
>> > given a chance to save, and the fetch the selected group from the
>> > backend.
>> >
>> > Sorry that wasn't clear.
>>
>> And to perhaps clarify a little further, I wasn't suggesting that end
>> users would actively tag settings, that just happened to seem like the
>> easiest way to say "group settings, allowing that they might each show
>> up in multiple groups".  Developers would classify a setting into one
>> or more groups ("tagging" them), and each group would have a name and
>> description to explain what goes where.
>>
>> --
>> Mike Rylander
>>  | VP, Research and Design
>>  | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
>>  | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
>>  | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
>>  | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com
>>
>> >
>> > --miker (from phone)
>> >
>> > On Mar 30, 2011 10:48 AM, "Jason Boyer" <jasonb at myjclibrary.org> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Do you mean that the same setting might be visible in more than one
>> >> place
>> >> on the settings page? That seems like it would get confusing fast,
>> >> especially if changing it in one location didn't immediately update all
>> >> of
>> >> the other instances. I think having a "settings group" field would be
>> >> helpful for building a better UI, but restricting a setting to 1 group
>> >> would
>> >> be easier for admins (who are not necessarily software developers or
>> >> database admins!) to use, and for software devs/db admins to implement.
>> >> That's the way the labels work in Gmail, and precious few people here
>> >> understand how that all works. (And Google did eventually have to add a
>> >> "Move To" button for users, which just dumbs them back down to simple
>> >> 1-label-per-email "folders" ...)
>> >>
>> >> Jason
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Jason Boyer, IT Specialist
>> >> Jackson County Public Library
>> >> 303 W Second St
>> >> Seymour, IN 47274
>> >>
>> >> jasonb at myjclibrary.org
>> >> p (812) 522-3412 ext. 227
>> >> f (812) 522-5456
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 10:15 AM, Mike Rylander <mrylander at gmail.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 4:31 PM, Joseph Lewis <joehms22 at gmail.com>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>> > Hello everyone,
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I have posted a draft here of what I plan to do (if I'm accepted)
>> >>> > during
>> >>> > GSoC for you all, if you could reply with some comments that would
>> >>> > be
>> >>> > great:
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> > https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1z-LX9O9BDzMZwuwMDz6dZ_7CjdRuXUmIlwU9qExrwJI
>> >>> >
>> >>>
>> >>> Thanks, Joe.
>> >>>
>> >>> A further idea that is perhaps worth evaluation is the addition of
>> >>> "tagging" to settings for the purpose of grouping them into logical
>> >>> sets.  This would be a many-to-many relationship as opposed to a
>> >>> simple many-to-one grouping as settings may be usefully viewed in more
>> >>> than one context.  This would increase the complexity of the task by
>> >>> involving more layers (in the least, database changes) and therefore
>> >>> may be less appropriate for a GSoC project (IMO, it's still quite
>> >>> do-able), but would pay large dividends in terms of flexibility and
>> >>> future maintenance if the UI was driven primarily by settings-grouping
>> >>> tags.
>> >>>
>> >>> --
>> >>> Mike Rylander
>> >>>  | VP, Research and Design
>> >>>  | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
>> >>>  | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
>> >>>  | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
>> >>>  | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>
>