[Ann] CintaNotes 2.8 Beta 2

User avatar
CintaNotes Developer
Site Admin
Posts: 5001
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:45 pm
Contact:

Re: search history

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:56 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:Sorting affects presentation. It is not a filter mechanism. So yes, maybe the state should not be saved at all.

Ok, I wonder if anyone would say anything in favor of keeping sorting as part of the history. Anyone?
Alex
User avatar
CintaNotes Developer
Site Admin
Posts: 5001
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:45 pm
Contact:

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Fri Oct 03, 2014 10:57 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:Alex, did you catch this one here?
It is easy to reproduce: open a note, edit it, save it using Ctrl+Alt+S and click the Cancel-button. The changes should have been saved, but they are not.


If I recall correctly, it's Ctrl+Shift+S, not Ctrl+Alt+S. The help says the same..
Alex
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:44 pm

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:Alex, did you catch this one here?
It is easy to reproduce: open a note, edit it, save it using Ctrl+Alt+S and click the Cancel-button. The changes should have been saved, but they are not.

If I recall correctly, it's Ctrl+Shift+S, not Ctrl+Alt+S. The help says the same..

Shame on me ;) You are absolutely right. So i am happy, it's actually working ok :)

Thomas
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: search history

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Fri Oct 03, 2014 5:53 pm

CintaNotes Developer wrote:In 2.8 I'll do only the following changes:
- Display bulky absolute state descriptions instead of deltas in the history menu

Please filter "reset search" items. Now that we will have absolute descriptions they are entirely meaningless. :)

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:Alternatives:
"blog javascript" in (Projects/Todo/Tomorrow Projects/Todo/NextWeek -Archive/Done)
blog javascript (Projects/Todo/Tomorrow Projects/Todo/NextWeek -Archive/Done)
Nice, but mind also that if any extra sections are added to the selection, they should be included here as well. Also when ALL sections are included, this should be shortened to "All sections".


Suggestion:

"blogs javascript" in (Projects/Todo/Tomorrow Projects/Todo/NextWeek -Archive/Done) in [Section1,Section4]
"javascript objects" in (Projects/Todo/Tomorrow Projects/Todo/NextWeek -Archive/Done) in [All sections]
"javascript objects" in (Projects/Todo/Tomorrow Projects/Todo/NextWeek -Archive/Done) in [Section4]

Thomas
User avatar
CintaNotes Developer
Site Admin
Posts: 5001
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:45 pm
Contact:

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:36 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:Shame on me ;) You are absolutely right. So i am happy, it's actually working ok :)

No problem ;)

Thomas Lohrum wrote:Please filter "reset search" items. Now that we will have absolute descriptions they are entirely meaningless.

Agreed.

Thomas Lohrum wrote:Suggestion:
"blogs javascript" in (Projects/Todo/Tomorrow Projects/Todo/NextWeek -Archive/Done) in [Section1,Section4]
"javascript objects" in (Projects/Todo/Tomorrow Projects/Todo/NextWeek -Archive/Done) in [All sections]
"javascript objects" in (Projects/Todo/Tomorrow Projects/Todo/NextWeek -Archive/Done) in [Section4]


Good suggestion, thanks. I can think of some improvements here:
1) I think there's no need to display a section when there's only one - since each section has its own filter history, it is only relevant when there are multiple sections selected.
2) The tag names can be shortened to leaf names (Tomorrow NextWeek -Done), displaying full names only when there are name conflicts (like its currently done in note previews).
3) Probably using single quotes instead of double quotes would be better, since double quotes have special meaning in the search syntax (exact phrase search). This will allow to avoid:
""javascript blog" -java" in
4) Don't like the double "in". I wonder if there's real need to differentiate between text and tag search at all. Consider:
'blogs javascript' Tomorrow NextWeek -Done [All Sections]
Alex
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:52 pm

CintaNotes Developer wrote:Good suggestion, thanks. I can think of some improvements here:
1) I think there's no need to display a section when there's only one - since each section has its own filter history, it is only relevant when there are multiple sections selected.

I agree, but how do we distinguish "All" from one single section?

CintaNotes Developer wrote:2) The tag names can be shortened to leaf names (Tomorrow NextWeek -Done), displaying full names only when there are name conflicts (like its currently done in note previews).
3) Probably using single quotes instead of double quotes would be better, since double quotes have special meaning in the search syntax (exact phrase search). This will allow to avoid: ""javascript blog" -java" in

Very promising!

CintaNotes Developer wrote:4) Don't like the double "in". I wonder if there's real need to differentiate between text and tag search at all. Consider: 'blogs javascript' Tomorrow NextWeek -Done [All Sections]

Is this an intention to have a speaking syntax for use as a phrase filter? One that could easily be stored? ;)

The list of notes is basically like a set in mathematics. It is a bit similar to SQL too. In the end i like the natural speaking of it 'search text' in (list of notes with matching tags) most. Single quotes for the search text, parentheses for the tags and square brackets for the sections. The latter is related to the UI styling of the section tabs. To avoid the double 'in' how about:
'blogs javascript' in (Resources) from [Development]

Thomas

PS: Am i actually the only person testing 2.8? I wonder no one else is taking part in the discussion this time.

[Edit 23:57]Your suggestion (Consider: 'blogs javascript' Tomorrow NextWeek -Done [All Sections]) does have the advantage of reducing visual noise. Also it can be used when there is a tag filter, but no text search.
User avatar
usbpoweredfridge
Posts: 410
Joined: Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:08 pm
Contact:

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby usbpoweredfridge » Sun Oct 05, 2014 1:09 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:PS: Am i actually the only person testing 2.8? I wonder no one else is taking part in the discussion this time.


No, there may be others testing, but the discussion could be way over their heads (personally, I've hardly understood anything you and Alex have been talking about). I often have that same problem when you and Alex get into the nitty gritty of how CintaNotes works, so I just tend to skip right over those discussions - it may be that others are doing the same here.

Chris
User avatar
CintaNotes Developer
Site Admin
Posts: 5001
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:45 pm
Contact:

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:27 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:I agree, but how do we distinguish "All" from one single section?

"All" will be displayed as "[All sections]. For single section we don't need to display anything. The first active section is always included, so this is redundant information. What matters here is which sections are included beyond the active one.

Thomas Lohrum wrote:Is this an intention to have a speaking syntax for use as a phrase filter? One that could easily be stored? ;)

No, just an attempt to minimize the visual noise, so that only the important information is displayed and not buried in the repetitive chunks.

Thomas Lohrum wrote:The list of notes is basically like a set in mathematics. It is a bit similar to SQL too. In the end i like the natural speaking of it 'search text' in (list of notes with matching tags) most. Single quotes for the search text, parentheses for the tags and square brackets for the sections. The latter is related to the UI styling of the section tabs. To avoid the double 'in' how about:
'blogs javascript' in (Resources) from [Development]

Generally I don't like using punctuation marks for designating different types of data. Also there very well may be tags with parentheses and sections with square brackets in names. What matters is the data itself, the user doesn't care whether it is a tag or a search string.

Thomas Lohrum wrote:[Edit 23:57]Your suggestion (Consider: 'blogs javascript' Tomorrow NextWeek -Done [All Sections]) does have the advantage of reducing visual noise. Also it can be used when there is a tag filter, but no text search.

Yes, this was exactly my thinking as well.
Alex
User avatar
CintaNotes Developer
Site Admin
Posts: 5001
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:45 pm
Contact:

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby CintaNotes Developer » Mon Oct 06, 2014 5:38 am

usbpoweredfridge wrote:No, there may be others testing, but the discussion could be way over their heads (personally, I've hardly understood anything you and Alex have been talking about). I often have that same problem when you and Alex get into the nitty gritty of how CintaNotes works, so I just tend to skip right over those discussions - it may be that others are doing the same here.


Probably that's because Thomas is also a developer and we tend to quickly get to "implementation-skewed" talk. But great that you've reminded us about it. We were talking about the newly added filter history feature (visible via the back and forward arrow icons next to the search box), and it desperately needs more comments from beta testers on what could be improved.

So far, Thomas has suggested the following, and I agreed:

1) When you right click on the back or forward button, currently the filter history is displayed as a set of deltas: what is different between two filter states. Basically, it is 'what needs to be done to get from this state to that state'. Thomas has suggested to always display the full state. This tends to hide what has been changed, but makes navigation the states easier. Later we were discussing how best to display these menu items.

2) Now there are two separate history stacks - the "back" menu, which receives new items when you change filters, and the "forward" menu, which receives items when you use the "back" button (or menu) to navigate the history. Thomas suggested to unify the back and forward history menus into one menu which would display the "current" state in bold. The "back" items would be placed below the "current" one, and "forward" items would be placed above the "current" one.

This is basically the picture as it stands now.

Chris, have you already tried the filter history feature? Do you find it easy to use? Do you agree with the suggestions above?
Alex
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Mon Oct 06, 2014 7:46 am

Hi Chris,

usbpoweredfridge wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:PS: Am i actually the only person testing 2.8? I wonder no one else is taking part in the discussion this time.
No, there may be others testing, but the discussion could be way over their heads (personally, I've hardly understood anything you and Alex have been talking about). I often have that same problem when you and Alex get into the nitty gritty of how CintaNotes works, so I just tend to skip right over those discussions - it may be that others are doing the same here. Chris

thanks for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate it.

Thomas
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Mon Oct 06, 2014 7:58 am

Hi Alex,

CintaNotes Developer wrote:Probably that's because Thomas is also a developer and we tend to quickly get to "implementation-skewed" talk. But great that you've reminded us about it. We were talking about the newly added filter history feature (visible via the back and forward arrow icons next to the search box), and it desperately needs more comments from beta testers on what could be improved. (...)

you're not only an excellent developer, but your social skills are just suited as well. Thanks for summing this all up and make it more understandable. :)

Thomas
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:02 am

CintaNotes Developer wrote:So far, Thomas has suggested the following, and I agreed: (...) This is basically the picture as it stands now.

I am sure Alex has it on his list, but to clarify i also suggested to add a shortcut, to allow to open the history menu using the keyboard.

Thomas
User avatar
usbpoweredfridge
Posts: 410
Joined: Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:08 pm
Contact:

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby usbpoweredfridge » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:04 am

CintaNotes Developer wrote:Probably that's because Thomas is also a developer and we tend to quickly get to "implementation-skewed" talk.


Ok, that explains a few things :) I have used the history feature, yes - comments following.

1) When you right click on the back or forward button, currently the filter history is displayed as a set of deltas: what is different between two filter states. Basically, it is 'what needs to be done to get from this state to that state'. Thomas has suggested to always display the full state. This tends to hide what has been changed, but makes navigation the states easier. Later we were discussing how best to display these menu items.


I agree the full state is more meaningful to a normal user - but I think as you have already been discussing, a full state can be quite long, and fitting those onto a context menu could be quite a challenge (the deltas are less useful to a normal user, but have the advantage of being smaller and easier to fit onto a context menu). And also as you have mentioned, if two full states are very similar to each other, highlighting the differences between them could be tricky to do - but I think it needs to be done if you are going with a full state.

I know the suggestion has been made that with a large monitor, the length of the full state won't matter - but I would respectfully suggest that people with 30" monitors are in the minority, not the majority. So a solution should not exclude those on smaller displays, IMHO. The only solution I can think of is some sort of shortening - of the selective kind. I think that is what you have been discussing specifically?

2) Now there are two separate history stacks - the "back" menu, which receives new items when you change filters, and the "forward" menu, which receives items when you use the "back" button (or menu) to navigate the history. Thomas suggested to unify the back and forward history menus into one menu which would display the "current" state in bold. The "back" items would be placed below the "current" one, and "forward" items would be placed above the "current" one.


Just thinking about other programs with a history (eg Firefox), I'd say that a combined history as described is probably the way to go here. I think having two sets of histories, one for each button, would be a little too confusing for some.

This is basically the picture as it stands now.


Thanks, good summary - now I understand.

I did notice a couple of other things when I updated to the Beta:
1. The history is not saved when you move between notebooks, or indeed even when you close CN. Is that intentional? If so, I think you can remove the 'clear history' item from the context menu (as it would be redudant).

2. Upon upgrading, all tags in the tag sidebar were hidden by an up arrow. I clicked it, to show my tags, but now can't find way to hide them again (not that I want them hidden, just that I want to see the hiding/un-hiding process in action).

Chris
Last edited by usbpoweredfridge on Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:09 am

Hi Alex,

CintaNotes Developer wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:I agree, but how do we distinguish "All" from one single section?
"All" will be displayed as "[All sections]. For single section we don't need to display anything. The first active section is always included, so this is redundant information. What matters here is which sections are included beyond the active one.

i use CintaNotes differently. I use "All sections" in 98% of my use cases. Occasionally i do a search limited to one section only. Until now i never had the need to select more than one section, though i agree it is great to have this possibility. As always different users have different needs. I rather suggest to never show [All sections]. That is, if nothing is added it means "all". Always show a single or multiple sections inside squared brackets. Imo this makes sense, because this state is different to "all". Also you mention the "active one" (section), but unless you add it to the history, how would i know which one is the active one?

Thomas
User avatar
usbpoweredfridge
Posts: 410
Joined: Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:08 pm
Contact:

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby usbpoweredfridge » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:16 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:thanks for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate it.


My wording isn't always the best, so I just wanted to make clear that I intended no disrespect to either Alex or yourself :) In my spare time I help support a particular media playing software (mainly via forums, sometimes via email - as a volunteer though, I am not employed by the company that makes it), and with that experience, I can say that I think a piece of software benefits from having a user such as yourself, who can talk to the developer on more of a direct level (as you do with Alex). And now with Alex having said that you were a developer yourself, I do now understand why the discussions do go into the detail that they do! Admittedly, that may mean that sometimes the discussion is over the heads of us that are not developers (or at least, some of us), but I think in the end, it is a positive benefit for CintaNotes as a whole :) And having lurked here for quite a while before I joined, I can say that you have made quite an impressive contribution to how CintaNotes has evolved!

Chris
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:26 am

Hi Chris,
usbpoweredfridge wrote:I agree the full state is more meaningful to a normal user - but I think as you have already been discussing, a full state can be quite long, and fitting those onto a context menu could be quite a challenge (the deltas are less useful to a normal user, but have the advantage of being smaller and easier to fit onto a context menu). And also as you have mentioned, if two full states are very similar to each other, highlighting the differences between them could be tricky to do - but I think it needs to be done if you are going with a full state. I know the suggestion has been made that with a large monitor, the length of the full state won't matter - but I would respectfully suggest that people with 30" monitors are in the minority, not the majority. So a solution should not exclude those on smaller displays, IMHO. The only solution I can think of is some sort of shortening - of the selective kind.

i am absolutely aware of the fact, that not all people use such large displays ;) My point is, that Cinta's main window itself has a width of its own. My guess is, that a context menu displaying full state, will fit into this width most of the times. Thus i don't expect the width of the context menu to be a problem.

usbpoweredfridge wrote:Just thinking about other programs with a history (eg Firefox), I'd say that a combined history as described is probably the way to go here. I think having two sets of histories, one for each button, would be a little too confusing for some.

When i have to use Windows Explorer (in rare occasions) i usually go mad about its stupid presentation of directory history. This is one of the reasons why i suggested to add a descriptive history to CintaNotes. Maybe it can be quite long in some cases, but after all it should be easy to select the desired item.

usbpoweredfridge wrote:1. The history is not saved when you move between notebooks. Is that intentional?

I understand this can be handy when you are using different databases a day. Maybe saving history can be added as a request to the roadmap?

usbpoweredfridge wrote:If so, I think you can remove the 'clear history' item from the context menu (as it would be redudant).

This makes sense even when you use one database only. I can even think of using the "Del" to delete a single item from the history.

Thomas
User avatar
usbpoweredfridge
Posts: 410
Joined: Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:08 pm
Contact:

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby usbpoweredfridge » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:36 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:I understand this can be handy when you are using different databases a day. Maybe saving history can be added as a request to the roadmap?


Indeed, I have multiple different notebooks - I find that a single notebook becomes too hard to navigate and find things in once you hit a certain number of notes - and constantly switch between them (so much so, I wish there was a better way to switch rather than having to visit the File menu every couple of minutes, but oh well, that is just the way the cookie crumbles when you have multiple notebooks).

Same applies to closing and opening CN, as history does not save here either (and I hate having programs open when I am not using them, so I open and close CN dozens of times a day). So all in all, I wouldn't make use of history at the moment, because it only exists for a few minutes before it is cleared (either by switching notebooks, or closing CN).

usbpoweredfridge wrote:This makes sense even when you use one database only. I can even think of using the "Del" to delete a single item from the history.


Yeah, I tend to think a delete option could even be handled by a single program option in CN itself - 'do not store history' (and that would cater to the people who do not like any program to store any history related items, eg for privacy purposes on a shared computer).

Chris

Edit: With my comment previously about the tags being hidden by an up arrow when I updated to 2.8 - I think something is going wrong here. It seems that when I open and close CN a few times, sometimes the tags are hidden by that arrow, and then sometimes they are not. So if I click the arrow to expand out my tags, and then close CN, when I re-open it, sometimes the tags are hidden again, and sometimes they are not. Can't quite pin down the behaviour though (reliably reproduce).
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:42 am

usbpoweredfridge wrote:
Thomas Lohrum wrote:thanks for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate it.
My wording isn't always the best, so I just wanted to make clear that I intended no disrespect to either Alex or yourself :) In my spare time I help support a particular media playing software (mainly via forums, sometimes via email - as a volunteer though, I am not employed by the company that makes it), and with that experience, I can say that I think a piece of software benefits from having a user such as yourself, who can talk to the developer on more of a direct level (as you do with Alex). And now with Alex having said that you were a developer yourself, I do now understand why the discussions do go into the detail that they do! Admittedly, that may mean that sometimes the discussion is over the heads of us that are not developers (or at least, some of us), but I think in the end, it is a positive benefit for CintaNotes as a whole :) And having lurked here for quite a while before I joined, I can say that you have made quite an impressive contribution to how CintaNotes has evolved! Chris

Chris,

thanks a lot for your kind words. My contribution to CintaNotes is a feedback to Alex' excellent work. He is not only doing extremely well in coding, but also in responding and supporting users. I enjoy supporting the project very much and am very happy with all the people here in the forum. It's not only me, but so many other people, like yourself, contributing to CintaNotes' success. :D

Thomas
Thomas Lohrum
Posts: 1324
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:15 am

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby Thomas Lohrum » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:48 am

usbpoweredfridge wrote:(...) constantly switch between them (databases) (so much so, I wish there was a better way to switch rather than having to visit the File menu every couple of minutes

Chris,

it's already on the roadmap. You can vote for it here http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/113476-tabs-for-notebooks/. Maybe i would use different notebooks (databases) too, if there were such a feature. But for the time being i use only one, because of the easier handling.

Thomas
User avatar
usbpoweredfridge
Posts: 410
Joined: Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:08 pm
Contact:

Re: Ctrl+Alt+S broken

Postby usbpoweredfridge » Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:55 am

Thomas Lohrum wrote:
usbpoweredfridge wrote:it's already on the roadmap. You can vote for it here http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/113476-tabs-for-notebooks/. Maybe i would use different notebooks (databases) too, if there were such a feature. But for the time being i use only one, because of the easier handling.


Ooh, nice - that is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks, I shall log-in and add my vote to the tally!

Chris

Return to “CintaNotes Personal Notes Manager”