Edit Pick List Window Redesign Proposal

[Tyson Schoeber]

Hi Brenden,

As a teacher, I use TF as a kind-of gradebook and so have saved HUNDREDS of reusable written comments in a Pick List. With that in mind, I have long wished that there was an easier way to review and edit those comments! The current design of the Edit Pick List window truncates nearly all of my comments, making them very hard to work with.

We have talked about this before and you have suggested using an external editor on the relevant library. While that approach works, I think it’s technical and beyond the ability of many users. Happily, a relatively simple solution dawned on me recently so I thought I would share it here. Please take a look at the attached graphic I created. I hope it speaks for itself! I’ll keep my fingers crossed that something like this could one day be implemented!

— Tyson

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[Brendan]

Hi Tyson,

Instead of just making the values edit table wider, I can just make the row heights dynamic so you can see the entire value no matter how many lines it is.

This will be in the next update.

see attachment.

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[Tyson Schoeber]

Even though I think I like the redesigned window better, there’s no doubt that adding dynamic row heights to the old window will be a big improvement! Is there any chance you could also add the Search tool to the old window? : )

[Brendan]

Ah I must have missed seeing that.

Consider it done :)

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[Tyson Schoeber]

That’s awesome, Brendan! Thank you so much. : )

[Tyson Schoeber]

I just noticed a very minor cosmetic problem with the beta version of this feature. When you first open the Pick List window, the word “Search” is centered in place. TF usually has the word right-justified so that caught my attention for some reason when I tried searching.

Interestingly, once search tool has been used and there are results in the list above it, the word “Search” is once again right-justified!

As I said, it’s a very minor problem on an otherwise excellent neat feature that already seems to work very well!

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[Brendan]

And by “right justified” you mean “left justified”, right? :)

What macOS version are you using? I’m not seeing that behaviour on Mojave. The search field placeholder text is always left justified.

[Tyson Schoeber]

Yes, of course! I meant “left justified!” ;)

As for the OS, I still have Sierra on this machine.

Aside from this minor cosmetic problem, the new features work great, though!

[Tyson Schoeber]

Hi Brenden,

I’ve been using the updated feature for the past few days and it is generally working extremely well! Using it, I have been able to identify and correct lots of small errors in the saved-comments in my classroom management database! Love it! ?

That said, there is one detail that I’ll point out here in case you can think of any way to address it. Whenever I add a longer comment to a Pick List, only the last few words of the comment are visible until I click out of the comment. I’ve attached a screenshot to show you how that looks.

As I often make minor edits to newly-written comments (i.e. changing “Sandy did a GREAT job on this assignment!” to “FIRST did a GREAT job on this assignment!”), a few extra clicks are required. Could the area that displays a newly-added comment be made “dynamic” too (i.e. able to show longer comments without truncation)?

If not, no worries! This new feature already gets an A from me! This idea would take it to A+! ;)

PS — The centered field name that I told you about above is still there even after I upgraded this machine to High Sierra.

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[Brendan]

Hi Tyson,

If you need more space when adding a new value, just click on the Add Values button and you’ll get a much larger area. Just don’t type a return character, otherwise you’ll get multiple values. That could be a solution to that problem.

Hopefully I’ll get an A+ for that workaround, especially important from a teacher! :)

Thanks!

Brendan

[Tyson Schoeber]

After using the newly designed window with the Add Value button for a few days, I thought I’d pass along a couple of observations. I’m almost — but not quite! — ready to give you an A+!! ; )

Generally speaking, the Add Value button works a LOT better for me than the Plus button because it gives more room to see and edit my longer comments.

Yet I’ve noticed that what happens to new comments when you press the “Done” button is somewhat different! With the Plus button, the new comment gets added to the bottom of the list and is immediately visible. With the Add Values approach, the new comment gets added to the bottom of the list BUT it gets hidden until you scroll up.

I know it’s my perfectionistic side speaking but could you tweak the code to make the new values added with the Add Value button appear automatically???

Interestingly, I also discovered a bit of unusual behaviour with respect to the Plus and Minus buttons. If you add a new value with the Plus button but then press the Minus button before saving the new comment, the comment ABOVE the newly-added one gets deleted!

Put another way, the new comment — which the user began to create but then changed their mind about — remains while an existing comment (which the user presumably wanted to keep) gets deleted!

I expect that’s just a tiny bug! ; )

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