On Mar 9, 2011, at 9:09 AM, John Mazzitelli wrote:
IMO, the main problem with the JSF UI D12N columns is that it is hard
to
understand or interpret those D12N columns easily when there is more
complex hierarchies to be displayed... they aren't "user friendly".
Even when I see them - I have a hard time understanding what its telling
me without me staring at it and thinking about it - it doesn't just
"come to me" for lack of a better way to explain it.
I guess what I am saying is - it should be made more intuitive.
ditto. I'm confused by the order and content of a few columns. I also think putting
everything into a single, flat row makes it more confusing.
So, some specific thoughts that I hope are helpful:
*) I don't understand the point of the resource type in the first column. The user
can't sort on that column and my suspicion is that the user cares much more about the
information in the 'type' column than the server/service/platform column. It's
also redundant when searching from the inventory report pages.
*) Plugin column - does this really matter for the typical use-cases? If I'm trying to
debug a new plugin or perhaps deployment I can see the value, but otherwise I don't.
*) We've committed to smartgwt, so why not take advantage of it?
e.g.
http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwt/showcase/#grid_expanding_details
http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwt/showcase/#tree_appearance_multicolumns
I frequently hear that the UI displays *too much* information. I don't know if
it's possible, but displaying only the important subset of information and retrieving
the rest when the user asks (e.g. expands the row) seems like it might solve some problems
in the UI as well as the server.
*) why not take advantage of grouping?
I think it's perfectly reasonable to provide a default grouping (e.g. platform or
managed type). If I'm not mistaken smartgwt makes it pretty easy to let the user
change grouping.
e.g.
http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwt/showcase/#grid_summaries_featured_cat...
http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwt/showcase/#grid_grouping_dynamic
-alan