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[Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 3:50 pm
by CintaNotes Developer
Jun 5, 2017 - Version 3.8 Beta2

In this version (in green - changes since Beta 1):

Features:
  • Autosave currently edited note
    Completely transparent to the user: in case of crash or power failure, edited note will be reopened after startup.
  • Editor: Added "Paste as plain text" command to context menu with Ctrl+Alt+V (and Ctrl+Shift+Ins) shortcut
  • Added option to auto minimize on losing focus to Options/Window menu. Use submenu to choose the timeout value.

Enhancements:
  • Notes list: more prominent display of selected tags in note previews
  • Retain tag filter when hiding tag sidebar
  • Double the length limit for names of note links
  • "Window/Close to tray" option is now active by default
  • "Window/Minimize to tray" option is now not active by default
  • Added "--close" ("-c") command line option to close all app instances from batch files

Fixes:
  • Updates subscription ending notification couldn't be hidden
  • Editor: fixed extremely slow opening of some notes
  • Editor: entering uppercase accented letters was not possible in some locales
    Added "editor.shortcuts.rightalt.enabled" option to regulate this.
  • Remembered password shouldn't be requested upon clipping
  • Rules: rule windows underneath main window when main window is "always on top"
  • Don't focus main window after closing editor if main window wasn't active when this editor was created
  • Editor: Pasting from Outlook inserted "&nbsp"'s
  • Print and HTML export: line breaks in wrong places
  • Fixed zlib decompress error upon opening Recycle bin

Download:
Portable: CintaNotes_3_8_Beta2.zip

WARNING! BETA SOFTWARE! USE AT OWN RISK AND ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR DATA!

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:07 pm
by Thomas Lohrum
Hi Alex,

3.8 introduces a confirmation when canceling changes in the note editor. Is there a setting to turn this confirmation off?

Thomas

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:14 am
by date
The dialog for pressing Cancel and pressing Esc is still the same.
For cancelling, the wording in the dialog is correct, perhaps the option 'No' could be changed to 'Return to editing' or something like that. And ability to remember 'Yes.'
But for Esc, (and Alt-F4, and other means of closing,) it should ask whether or not to save the note, with the default being Yes, and the ability to remember 'Yes,' like how it was.

Personally I am fine with no additional dialog on Cancel, like how it was in 3.7. Yes, you can 'accidentally' cancel changes, but you can 'accidentally' save changes as well, more dialogs is not the perfect solution. The button with the text 'Cancel' is clear enough.

By the way, it's not in the list of fixes, but thank you for fixing the scrolling bug.

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:18 am
by CintaNotes Developer
Thomas Lohrum wrote:3.8 introduces a confirmation when canceling changes in the note editor. Is there a setting to turn this confirmation off?


Hi Thomas,
Yes there will be in the final release. I've received negative feedback about this change and I think I'll have to revert it.

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:30 am
by CintaNotes Developer
date wrote:The dialog for pressing Cancel and pressing Esc is still the same.
For cancelling, the wording in the dialog is correct, perhaps the option 'No' could be changed to 'Return to editing' or something like that. And ability to remember 'Yes.'
But for Esc, (and Alt-F4, and other means of closing,) it should ask whether or not to save the note, with the default being Yes, and the ability to remember 'Yes,' like how it was.


We have "Options/Editor/Save on Esc " for this purpose. There's no need for any dialog to appear if this option is active since the note will be saved anyway. When the option is not active, pressing Esc (or clicking on X) is trated as equivalent to pressing the Cancel button. Here I think it's ok to show the confirmation dialog with the ability to remember the answer. The only problem here is that the Cancel button should continue to cancel changes even if "always save" answer is remembered, otherwise the user will lose any ability to cancel the changes.

Personally I am fine with no additional dialog on Cancel, like how it was in 3.7. Yes, you can 'accidentally' cancel changes, but you can 'accidentally' save changes as well, more dialogs is not the perfect solution. The button with the text 'Cancel' is clear enough.


I think here's the solution that will be as close to perfect as possible:
1) There should be two options in CN - whether to invoke "Save and close" or "Cancel and close" commands on Esc/Alt+F4 (whereas the Cancel button always invokes "Cancel and close" command), and whether to confirm saving changes upon invoking "Cancel and close" command.
2) The first option is covered by Options/Editor/Save on Esc
3) The second option is covered by the "Don't ask again" checkbox in the save confirmation dialog. Since this checkbox will only work for the "No" (=don't save) answer (otherwise the user will lose ability to cancel the changes), it should be renamed to "Don't ask to save changes when canceling"

By the way, it's not in the list of fixes, but thank you for fixing the scrolling bug.

Didn't do anything special about it, seems it was fixed by the note opening performance optimization :)

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 3:24 pm
by date
CintaNotes Developer wrote:We have "Options/Editor/Save on Esc " for this purpose. There's no need for any dialog to appear if this option is active since the note will be saved anyway.
As it turns out, to my surprise, I didn't have this checked. Apparently, I pressed Esc once, remembered to save, and this is how I have been using it all along.

When the option is not active, pressing Esc (or clicking on X) is trated as equivalent to pressing the Cancel button.
Yes, but only since v3.8. But closing the window should not be treated the same as cancelling the note.
And, clicking on X always saved the note, nothing has changed here.

The only problem here is that the Cancel button should continue to cancel changes even if "always save" answer is remembered, otherwise the user will lose any ability to cancel the changes.
That worked fine in 3.7. But the dialog was only invoked on pressing Esc, and not on cancel.

I think here's the solution that will be as close to perfect as possible:
1) There should be two options in CN - whether to invoke "Save and close" or "Cancel and close" commands on Esc/Alt+F4 (whereas the Cancel button always invokes "Cancel and close" command), and whether to confirm saving changes upon invoking "Cancel and close" command.
2) The first option is covered by Options/Editor/Save on Esc
3) The second option is covered by the "Don't ask again" checkbox in the save confirmation dialog. Since this checkbox will only work for the "No" (=don't save) answer (otherwise the user will lose ability to cancel the changes), it should be renamed to "Don't ask to save changes when canceling"

It seems the dialogs intent is to ask for confirmation for cancelling, instead of asking whether to save or not, and a positive answer is 'No.' You can still remember Yes, but from 3.8 final on it remembers 'No.' However, when I copied the 3.8 final in my CN folder with my usual settings file, when I press cancel, it saves the note.

To avoid confusion like this, I'd suggest making the dialog so that when ticking the 'Don't ask again' box, it greys out the Yes button, and when pressing Esc, simply do nothing, except when Options/Editor/Save on Esc is checked. (Or are there people who want to cancel on Esc?)
And, because the behavior changed, renaming the key names in the settings file.

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 12:59 pm
by CintaNotes Developer
date wrote:As it turns out, to my surprise, I didn't have this checked. Apparently, I pressed Esc once, remembered to save, and this is how I have been using it all along.

I see. Yes, it's not very discoverable, but I'm afraid making this the default won't make users happy either.

Yes, but only since v3.8. But closing the window should not be treated the same as cancelling the note.
And, clicking on X always saved the note, nothing has changed here.

If a dialog box has OK and Cancel buttons, users expect Esc to mean "cancel". Clicking on X is ambiguous in this regard, and I think it is good that CN takes the safest route in this case.

That worked fine in 3.7. But the dialog was only invoked on pressing Esc, and not on cancel.

Yes, that this is exactly why this worked. But clicking on Cancel can be erroneous. If there are unsaved changes, the program should propose to save them.

It seems the dialogs intent is to ask for confirmation for cancelling, instead of asking whether to save or not, and a positive answer is 'No.' You can still remember Yes, but from 3.8 final on it remembers 'No.' However, when I copied the 3.8 final in my CN folder with my usual settings file, when I press cancel, it saves the note.

The switch of button meaning was only briefly in Beta 2, then I reverted it. People have convinced me that the expected behavior is to propose to save changes, not to confirm cancelling. Numerous software works like this, MS Word, Visual Studio, etc.

To avoid confusion like this, I'd suggest making the dialog so that when ticking the 'Don't ask again' box, it greys out the Yes button, and when pressing Esc, simply do nothing, except when Options/Editor/Save on Esc is checked. (Or are there people who want to cancel on Esc?)

I agree about the greying out the non-applicable option, but yes there are people who want to cancel on Esc, provided a confirmation dialog appears.

And, because the behavior changed, renaming the key names in the settings file.

The meaning of the key values didn't change from 3.7 to 3.8.

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 3:25 pm
by date
If a dialog box has OK and Cancel buttons, users expect Esc to mean "cancel".

People have convinced me that the expected behavior is to propose to save changes, not to confirm cancelling. Numerous software works like this, MS Word, Visual Studio, etc.
Those must be different people. The first group regards the note window as a typical options dialog. The second group obviously thinks Esc means 'close.' Because for cancelling, no such example is found in MS Word, and I'll bet nowhere in Visual Studio or other Microsoft programs as well.

It seems the dialogs intent is to ask for confirmation for cancelling, instead of asking whether to save or not, and a positive answer is 'No.' You can still remember Yes, but from 3.8 final on it remembers 'No.' However, when I copied the 3.8 final in my CN folder with my usual settings file, when I press cancel, it saves the note.

The switch of button meaning was only briefly in Beta 2, then I reverted it.
The meaning of the dialog in 3.8, is the opposite to what it meant in 3.7. It is even reflected in the text near the checkbox.

The meaning of the key values didn't change from 3.7 to 3.8.
And as a result, I was not able to cancel when I replaced the executable with the 3.8 one. I deleted the lines in the settings file that started with 'confirm.' Then, before doing anything, ticked the 'Save on Esc' checkbox. Then, made a note and pressed Cancel, tick the checkbox and choose either yes, no, or cancel (apparently they all mean the same.) Now, it works as before.

If you do this in the wrong order, you can lose the ability to cancel, or, you will automatically lose changes when you press Esc.

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2017 5:29 pm
by date
The meaning of the key values didn't change from 3.7 to 3.8.
I have misread this in my answer above. The meaning did change in 3.8, because the properties of those values now apply to the cancel button, and in 3.7 they didn't.

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 8:42 am
by CintaNotes Developer
date wrote:Those must be different people. The first group regards the note window as a typical options dialog. The second group obviously thinks Esc means 'close.' Because for cancelling, no such example is found in MS Word, and I'll bet nowhere in Visual Studio or other Microsoft programs as well.

The note editing dialog is actually a document editing dialog, not options dialog. This is where the distinction stems from. People expect it to behave like a mini-document editing program.

The meaning of the dialog in 3.8, is the opposite to what it meant in 3.7. It is even reflected in the text near the checkbox.

How come? The only thing that has changed is that now the scope of the "don't ask again" is limited to the "No" button ("don't save"), you can't say "save automatically every time".

Yes I admit that people that clicked on "Don't ask again" and clicked on "Yes" are out of luck, but this was essintially a bug in 3.7 and older versions. There's a workaround for this that involves editing the settings file that you've already found for yourself.

Then, before doing anything, ticked the 'Save on Esc' checkbox. Then, made a note and pressed Cancel, tick the checkbox and choose either yes, no, or cancel (apparently they all mean the same.) Now, it works as before.

Yes, to set the checkbox now it doesn't matter which button you select. Because the checkbox is not tied to buttons anymore.

If you do this in the wrong order, you can lose the ability to cancel, or, you will automatically lose changes when you press Esc.

Probably you have in mind the following scenario:
1) A user makes a change and then clicks on the Cancel button
2) In the confirmation dialog, checks the "Don't ask to save"
3) In another note, he hits Esc thinking that it will save the note, but instead the note is silently closed without saving
Is it what you meant?

And about losing ability to cancel - as far as I understand, it is no more possible in 3.8 onwards (provided you have clean install).

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 5:42 pm
by date
The meaning of the dialog in 3.8, is the opposite to what it meant in 3.7. It is even reflected in the text near the checkbox.

How come? The only thing that has changed is that now the scope of the "don't ask again" is limited to the "No" button ("don't save"), you can't say "save automatically every time".


The tickbox says 'Don't ask to save changes when cancelling.' But I don't remember cancelling. And the expected answer is 'No,' and worse, remembers 'No' even when you click Yes. But the focussed button is 'Yes.' And the question is 'Save or not?' Like a little riddle.

Here is a more straightforward way: http://imgur.com/a/0pdNq .

Probably you have in mind the following scenario:
1) A user makes a change and then clicks on the Cancel button
2) In the confirmation dialog, checks the "Don't ask to save"
3) In another note, he hits Esc thinking that it will save the note, but instead the note is silently closed without saving
Is it what you meant?


It's not far-fetched considering the wording and the complex logic. If the Esc-key somehow must be tied to cancelling then keep it, but it's unusual.
In that case consider graying out the 'Yes' button to the question if the box is ticked to make it clear for the people unaquainted with this logic that the question is in reverse and unrelated to the Esc key they pressed expecting the window to be closed and a box in the main window needs to be ticked first to make Esc unequivalent to Cancel, or worse and more likely, in the opposite order, where they tick the box on Cancel so they don't get asked every time, and later on, accidentally press Esc.

And about losing ability to cancel - as far as I understand, it is no more possible in 3.8 onwards (provided you have clean install).

Ok that's right.

Re: [Ann] CintaNotes 3.8 Beta 2

Posted: Tue Jun 20, 2017 8:34 am
by CintaNotes Developer
Hi date and terribly sorry for big delay!

The tickbox says 'Don't ask to save changes when cancelling.' But I don't remember cancelling. And the expected answer is 'No,' and worse, remembers 'No' even when you click Yes. But the focussed button is 'Yes.' And the question is 'Save or not?' Like a little riddle.
Here is a more straightforward way: http://imgur.com/a/0pdNq .


Indeed, your way is much clearer. Let's do it this way: I'll add this as a task with a low priority. As soon as there's evidence that current design is causing problems, I'll raise the priority of the task.

It's not far-fetched considering the wording and the complex logic. If the Esc-key somehow must be tied to cancelling then keep it, but it's unusual.
In that case consider graying out the 'Yes' button to the question if the box is ticked to make it clear for the people unaquainted with this logic that the question is in reverse and unrelated to the Esc key they pressed expecting the window to be closed and a box in the main window needs to be ticked first to make Esc unequivalent to Cancel, or worse and more likely, in the opposite order, where they tick the box on Cancel so they don't get asked every time, and later on, accidentally press Esc.


Oh my, it doesn't have to be that complicated. Probably implementing your draft is the best way to go, even though it will require adding another setting to the settings file. But thanks for brinding my attention to this.