Editor
Implementation Stories, in priority order
Also referred to by
Can't change name of Model: In the Dragaera space, I created a new model. It got an auto-generated name, which makes sense. But I was unable to figure out any way to give the Model a more mnemonic name.
Exactly One shouldn't apply to Model editing : User Story:
When it's time to enter data into an instance of PagePanel, a Start Page and a Start Panel are both required; it's not a valid reference if either is blank. Hence, I have marked those as Exactly One. So far, so good.
When I edit the MODEL, however, I very much DO want to leave these fields blank. Any value I entered would be incorrect most of the time, requiring extra keystrokes and attention to delete it. Unfortunately, the editor will not currently let me do this.
I should be able to easily define a Choice Property: Currently, if I want to define a choice, I have to do it by hand: define the model and the instances, set Is a Choice, and create a Property. This should be one step under Create a New Property, with a specialized wizard.
Refresh page loses data: I'm getting used to a new tablet/browser. It's sadly easy for me to accidentally trigger 'reload page'. When this happens in the midst of filling out something complex, all my data is lost :-(
Set editing is fragile and inefficient: All of the Set UIs currently send the entire set back and forth every time you add or remove an item. That's dumb -- not only is it extremely inefficient, it means that two browsers looking at the same set will tend to stomp each other. This has been a fairly frequent problem for my Shopping List.
There should be a keyboard shortcut for "Done": When I am editing a complex Thing like the Characters in ARC, scrolling down to the Done button gets tiresome. Ctrl-d or something like that should mean "Done" anywhere in the Editor, not just in Large Text.
When I close a window, my changes shouldn't be lost: From Eric: "If you type in a comment for a Review, then close the window before changing focus, the comment is lost, even with a reasonable pause between the end of typing and the window closing." More generally, closing a window while in the middle of an input should ideally save the input somehow.
Adding a Property of Link Type through the Actions menu doesn't let you specify a Link Model: When I am editing a Thing, add a Property, and Create a new Property of Link Type, I get the option to set an optional Link Model. So far, so good.
If, on the other hand, I go to the Actions menu, choose, Add a Property, and define the new property as a Link Type, I get no option to give it a Link Model.
Ctrl-s should save the current state of my Text: It is a bit nerve-wracking to edit a large text block in a browser window. It would be
very comforting if there was an easy way (probably ctrl-s) to do a quick save of at least that text, possibly the entire current state of the edit so far.
Deleting a Property from a Model should be more thorough: When I delete a Property from a Model, 3 times out of 4, I don't need that Property at all any more. But truly deleting it is a pain: I have to Show all Properties, go to the Property itself, and delete it manually. This should be easier.
Edit all Instances should manage pagination with the scrollbars: Instead of old-fashioned coarse-grained pagination, Edit all Instances
should simply manipulate the scrollbar. Ideally, the approximate length of the "page" should be calculated from the first ten instances; when you drag the scrollbar and land, it should load the live Editors for where it lands.
I can define an Edit Button: This is to deal with a major usability bug in the Page Header Property -- there is no way to add an Edit button to it!
I can edit a List's content nicely, in-page: This is a bit speculative, but borderline necessary for managing Features. I need to be able to render the list of the Feature's Stories, in Summary Display format; rearrange the list
in that format; have an easy way to edit a given Story in that list; and have an easy way to add another Story to that list.
I can make a non-live-editing page: Needs thought, but it comes up again and again -- in some use cases, folks really expect and want to be able to edit in a non-live mode, with a clear "Save" or "Done" button.
I should be able to create a new Model from Create Property: The current workflow for creating a Tag Set pointing to a Model is a hassle -- I have to leave the Editor, create the new Model, then come back to the Editor to create the Property. I should be able to create the Model right there, while I'm creating the Property to point to it.
I should be able to mark a link value as unselectable: That is, I can add a Boolean property which, if set, prevents this from being selected in drop downs, tag prompts, and so on. The idea is that this is still a valid thing, but should not be used in anything new.
I should have a way to reuse QText/QL templates: When creating a bunch of Models, I sometimes want to reuse essentially the same Default View in several places. It would be nice to have a way to do this without doing a lot of copy/pasting.
It is too hard to enter a Tag that is a strict subset of an existing one: For example, say that there is an existing Thing named "Footer", and I want to create a Tag named "Foo". There is no obvious way to do it -- it prompts me with "Footer", and doesn't give me the option of creating the new one. The workaround is very unobvious: I have to click away from the control, which causes it to accept what I have typed.
Is it even possible to do this right with OOTB Manifest? The right UI is probably to show what I am typing as the top element in the list of options (or at least, as the bottom one), so that I have something I can accept. I may have to enhance Manifest to get this, I suspect.
Optional Model Values don't work right: Create a Model, with a Text field. Then, in another Thing, create an
Optional Property derived from that Model. Fill in the text field. Restart the server -- the value is not correctly persisted.
Properties should have their own Editor: For the time being, to edit a Property, you have to use the old Advanced Editor. That works, but it sucks. We should instead have a consistent Property Wizard, built from the current Create a Property pane in the Edit page.
The Large Text Editor should prompt me in QL expressions: When I am writing a long block of complex text that uses a lot of QL (for example, writing character sheets in ARC), much of my time is spent typing that QL. But that's silly: the system should really prompt me usefully, the same way that an IDE would.
I.
When editing a field, a popup appears over the name of the Property with the description. So far, so good. But there's no obvious way to dismiss this popup, and it often obscures buttons one might want to use. Worse, sometimes this popup sticks around even after you go into another field, so you can end up with several of these sticking around.
II.
The green action bar at the top of the page doesn't behave correctly when you scroll, often getting stuck at some arbitrary part of the page.
Closed Issues
Deleted Property still exists?: In My Dragaera space, in the Book model, I initially created a field "Book Title". I later realized that I really just wanted to use "Name" for that, so deleted that Property. Sort of. If I click on "Book", it still lists "Book Title" as one of the Instance Properties. If I create a new instance of Book, it has a Book Title field. But when I try to Edit Book to get rid of it, "Book Title" is NOT listed in the Instance Properties.
Instance Properties prevent me from editing Instance-local Properties: Create a Model with some Properties. Set its Instance Properties appropriately. Create an Instance, and set one of those Properties. Delete the Property from the Model. It is now orphaned -- since the Model has Instance Properties set, editing the Instance doesn't let you edit the Property, but it's still there.
Tag Set UI is broken!!!: Somewhere in the recent changes, Tag Sets stopped using Manifest, and instead began to use the ordinary List UI. This needs fixing, ASAP!
Tags don't seem to immediately "take": Noticed this while editing my Songbook. This is specifically a New Tag, with no Link Model, in the bulk Editor. When I enter a new Tag, like "Funny", then go on to the next entry and try to enter "Funny" again, it does
not prompt me with the newly-created Tag.
I should be able to disable the "Create a *Foo*" in Link selectors: The problem here is most apparent when tabbing through the Create a Issue Editor page. You hit space to edit the Issue Priority, and then try to use arrows to go through the options, but when you hit "Create a New Priority", it kicks you into the creation window, which is totally not what you want.
In general, the "Create" option often shouldn't be legal on these Links. We really should have a concept of "sealed" -- a Property you can set on the Model, which says that you can't Create new Instances from the Editor like that, but only be hand-creating new ones.
I should be able to edit a Property, much the same way as I create it: This actually borders on a usability bug. Creating a Property is fairly easy, but modifying one is irritatingly hard. Once we are displaying the appropriate meta-Properties for a given Property based on its Type, the existing workflow (Actions -> All Properties -> the right Property -> Edit -> figure out the meta-Property -> add it) becomes utterly idiotic. Instead, I should be able to edit the Property straightforwardly.
Tick in a Text causes an internal error: When entering [this song]() into my Songbook, I tried to enter the name "Arthur O'Shaughnessy" in the Created By field. This crashed, with some sort of internal error.
Design a Model should have Is a Model checked initially: I think this one in annoying enough to qualify as a design bug. When Models and Instances came from the same menu pick it was necessary to select Is a Model manually, but that's no longer true. The Design a Model menu pick should set Is a Model when the page shows up.
Numeric Input Length is broken: In Comics, tried to add Edit Width to the Issue Start Property. I set it to "4", and was given an error saying it can be no more than 12. WTF? Are we doing string comparison where we should be doing numeric?
editThingInternal() needs to stop using raw OIDs: In particular, the "model" parameter is a raw OID; it should have always been a ThingId. Fixing this is going to be a PITA, since we have screwed it up in so many places, but it needs to happen -- at the moment, it is causing all sorts of bugs.
I can create multiple Types from the same Model: Currently, it is extremely easy to accidentally create multiple Types from the same Model. This is usually undesireable, and probably always a mistake. So let's plan to disable this for the time being, and we'll re-enable it if anybody comes up with a compelling use case.
Done button should use OID link, not ThingId: Currently, the Done button of the Thing Editor uses the ThingId for linking. Problem is, we might be editing the Name field, in which case the page then comes up as an unknown name when we press Done. So this is an example where using the hard link is probably more appropriate.
Collection radio buttons not working right: In the Create New Property panel, the Collection buttons (Exactly One / Collection / List / Set)
function right, but they no longer
look right. When I press Optional, it doesn't unpress Exactly One.
_edit is taking a weirdly long time for Issue: In the Comics Space, we say _edit on Issue quite often, and it's taking bizarrely long to display -- about three seconds. Why? It isn't an exceptionally complex type. It feels like something about _edit is taking time proportional to the size of the Space.
Mis-rendered HTML in Link listing: For example, in this Space, in the Editor look at the "Issue Closed Reason" options. "Can't repro" has the apostrophe over-escaped.
Add Photo button should activate on Enter: This is slowly driving me nuts as I build the documentation. In the Instance Editor, the Add Photo button doesn't react to the Enter key -- I have to take my hands off the keyboard and use the mouse to activate it. That's just dumb.
Set of Text crashes: Clearly a regression, since I use this in the Period Games Space, but not sure when it happened.
Up/down arrows don't work consistently: For most text interfaces in the world that don't exceed a single line, up-arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of that line, while down-arrow moves the cursor to the end of the line. This doesn't always work in Querki (though it does in many places).
When entering the Name of a new Property, for example, the up/down arrows do nothing.
Drag handle in Lists takes too much space: Look at the Editor for Reconstruction -- the drag handle takes up totally unnecessary vertical space in all those lists. This should all be more visually compact.