Unset - Configuration Editor

John Sanda jsanda at redhat.com
Tue Sep 11 16:10:24 UTC 2012


I have a question. Do we need the unset column at all? I understand for list properties having options, we need a way to deselect the value. There it makes sense, but I find the unset column confusing when i see it next to a text field for a simple property for example. If I want to deselect the value for a simple property, I just as easily click in the text field and delete the value. There are other places where the column does not make any sense, like read-only properties. Even with a list, it may not be intuitive. The header for the checkbox is at the top of the editor. Suppose I have a set of properties that spans the length of my screen, and I have a list property at the bottom. It may not be clear to me what that checkbox is doing there. I'd like to see us think about altogether getting rid of the unset column. We still need a way to deselect list options. Maybe it could be as simple as giving the radio buttons checkbox behavior so that clicking on a selected radio button deselects it. I'd be interested to get feedback from UXD on this.

Aside from my question, I am +1 on the new behavior.

- John

On Sep 11, 2012, at 8:58 AM, Stefan Negrea <snegrea at redhat.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> To fix this, I changed the way default values are applied to properties to give a natural user experience. As you can see even explaining this new behaviour is more concise. Here is how this works after the update:
> 1) On load, if the field is unset then disable field and set value to null.
> 2) On load, if the field is set then enable field and load saved value.
> 3) On unset change from true to false, enable field and load default value if not null. Enable save button.
> 4) On unset change from false to true, disable field and set value to null. Enable save button.
> 
> 
> All this work was triggered by BZ 851186 which was reported against the AS7 plugin. However this problem was applicable to every single screen with a configuration editor. As you can see from the bug description, the original behaviour was very confusing even to the reporter. Here is the BZ for reference:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=851186
> 
> 
> Any thoughts? Is the new behaviour intuitive enough?
> 
> 
> Thank you,
> Stefan Negrea
> 
> Software Engineer
> 
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