Disambiguation changes for RHQ4
Ian Springer
ian.springer at redhat.com
Fri Mar 11 17:35:31 UTC 2011
Jay-
Looking good.
I'm in agreement with your proposal. I also agree the tooltip format
needs some work. I don't think it's immediately clear that the 2nd line
is the type hierarchy. Since we're not constrained for space, I'd add a
label to make it obvious, and perhaps also add a label to the ancestry
names, e.g.:
Ancestry Names: JVM > RHQAgent > jshaughn
Ancestry Types: RHQ Agent JVM > RHQ Agent > Windows
Also, it's not intuitive that the ancestry starts at the resource's
parent rather than at its root ancestor. To me, the ">" signs generally
imply starting at the root of a hierarchy. So I would either try
reversing the ">" signs, e.g.:
Ancestry Names: JVM < RHQAgent < jshaughn
or explicitly calling out the order, e.g.:
Ancestry Names (starting at parent): JVM > RHQAgent > jshaughn
or both:
Ancestry Names (starting at parent): JVM < RHQAgent < jshaughn
I also like the idea of embedding P/S/S icons in the ancestry, in the
table and in the tooltip. It would be particularly useful in the table,
where the ancestry types are not shown, e.g.:
[Service icon] JVM < [Server Icon] RHQAgent < [Platform icon] jshaughn
In this case, it would tell the user that jshaugn is a platform, which
otherwise is not obvious.
- Ian
On 03/11/2011 11:04 AM, Jay Shaughnessy wrote:
> I moved this info to wiki if you'd rather see it there:
> http://www.rhq-project.org/display/RHQ/Disambiguation+API#DisambiguationAPI-CurrentDesign%28subjecttochange%29
>
> On 3/10/2011 5:51 PM, Jay Shaughnessy wrote:
>> Where oh where did the pictures go... let me try again
>>
>> On 3/10/2011 5:11 PM, Jay Shaughnessy wrote:
>>> Thanks for the input so far. What I'm hearing:
>>>
>>> - The rhq3 solution favored the ability to disambiguate given the
>>> on-screen information.
>>> - There are several corner-cases that make a single display format
>>> difficult.
>>> - The rhq3 solution can be difficult to parse and/or understand given
>>> lack of visual uniformity (the trade-off for putting it all on screen)
>>> - Try and utilize smargwt as best as possible.
>>>
>>> So after playing with this stuff for a bit I've been looking at two
>>> different formats for the Resource/Name column in various views. In the
>>> Inventory Views we have just the resource name and the ancestry resource
>>> names (note that here we also have Plugin and Type columns but that is
>>> more the exception than the rule):
>> inventory view
>>> And in other places, like portlets, we have a more verbose resource
>>> field:
>> portlet
>>> Currently, in both views the Ancestry provides "hover" information that
>>> gives type info to supplement the resource name info:
>> hover
>>> Note that there has been no attempt made in rhq4 to mimic the
>>> contextual, varying display, approach used in rhq3. At the moment the
>>> column formats for name and ancestry are fixed.
>>>
>>>
>>> I think I'm in favor of the following approach:
>>>
>>> 1. The Name/Resource column should be consistently named. For
>>> consistency throughout the UI I would recommend 'Resource'.
>>> 'Name' is not sufficient as resource information is often
>>> embedded in views of a different contxt, like in the portlet
>>> above. Also 'Resource Ancestry' makes more sense than 'Name
>>> Ancestry'.
>>> 2. On screen we limit the 'Resource' column value to the resource
>>> name (like shown above for the inventory view), and 'Ancestry' to
>>> the resource name ancestry (as shown above). This provides a
>>> consistent, clean viewing experience that in many cases will
>>> provide enough D12N for the user, in the given context. Since all
>>> of the values are links the fonts and colors are uniform.
>>> 3. Provide Hover information for both Resource and Ancestry values.
>>> This is more than what we have at the moment, which is just for
>>> Ancestry. Although expanding rows are nice, we use that
>>> elsewhere
>>> in the GUI for different purposes. Typically to provide detail
>>> about the above row (like audit info) as opposed to a more
>>> verbose
>>> rendition of the same. Also, it requires a click which is a bit
>>> more work than hover for performing D12N between rows.
>>> 4. For the Resource I think the hover should contain the Plugin,
>>> Type
>>> and Resource Name. A format like seen above, simple, unchanged
>>> for different locales, maybe:
>>> * PluginName TypeName *ResourceName*
>>> * PluginName TypeName *ResourceName*
>>> * PluginName / TypeName *ResourceName*
>>> * PluginName, TypeName *ResourceName*
>>> * [PluginName] TypeName *Resource Name*
>>> 5. For the Ancestry things are a little trickier. I don't love the
>>> current hover format, the staggered rows are hard to parse. But
>>> the separation of name and type into two hierarchies is fairly
>>> clear. Addtional ideas:
>>> * Single line (could get very long) :
>>> o [RHQAgent] RHQ Agent JVM *JVM> *[RHQAgent] RHQ Agent
>>> *RHQ Agent> *[Platforms] Windows*jshaughn*
>>> o *
>>> *
>>> * I'm a bit afraid of a tall, tree-like format, but it may
>>> work:
>>> * [Platforms] Windows*jshaughn***
>>> *> [RHQAgent] RHQ Agent *RHQ Agent *
>>> *> [RHQAgent] RHQ Agent JVM *JVM*
>>> * *
>>> *
>>> * or maybe even a table format (if I could figue out how to
>>> format that so the columns are even):
>>> o RHQAgent RHQ Agent JVM *JVM*
>>> o RHQAgent RHQ Agent *RHQ Agent*
>>> o Platforms Windows* jshaughn*
>>> o *
>>> *
>>> 6. For inventory views, keep Plugin and Type columns. It allows for
>>> more sorting options and can provide D12N help. I suggest
>>> actually we reorder the columns to be Ancestry, Plugin, Type,
>>> Description. I think this is most useful for D12N,
>>> description is
>>> generally not looked at, I think. Also, in general display plugin
>>> to the left of type. I think it's a bit clearer to prefix the
>>> type with its defining plugin. Although verbose, since plugins
>>> can and do share type names, I think we have to keep plugin name
>>> in the D12N display.
>>> 7. In certain views, like selectors, there is only one column, In
>>> this case the hover should combine the Resource and Ancestry
>>> info.
>>>
>>> So, the approach is basically to favor a clean, uniform look over
>>> immediate coverage of all D12N scenarios. And to use hover for more
>>> verbosity when required.
>>>
>>> Jay
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/10/2011 11:02 AM, Alan Santos wrote:
>>>> 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_category
>>>>
>>>> http://www.smartclient.com/smartgwt/showcase/#grid_grouping_dynamic
>>>>
>>>> -alan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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--
Ian Springer
Principal Software Developer
JBoss Operations Network
Red Hat
ian.springer at redhat.com
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