Re: gEDA-user: [Patches] GTK Recent-file-manager

[Peter Clifton <pcjc2@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 2011-01-01 at 13:57 -0800, Matthew Wilkins wrote:
> > Hmmm, I have never done something like this, but I will try. Does anyone 
> > of you have a hint for a documentation how to do this and a link to a 
> > webpage, where I can host this repository?
> 
> >Thanks,
> >Felix
> 
> 
> 
> I'd be interested to know how you do this; I'm preparing a patch to gschem's 
> multi-attribute editor to allow it to operate on multiple objects at once, 
> rather than going blank when multiple objects are selected.  It's getting close 
> to the point where it could be released for testing and feedback.


Excellent!

I'd be interested to know how you're tackling the user interface (and
editing behaviour) with multiple objects selected.

When I last worked on the multi-attribute editor code, it was not at all
clear to me just what the expected behaviour for a multiple-selection
would be. (That is why I copped out and made it go blank).


There are various cases:

1. Attribute exists in all objects, same value
2. Attribute exists in all objects, different values
3. Attribute does NOT exist in all objects. (Same value in those which it does)
4. Attribute does NOT exist in all objects. (Different values in those which it does)

When we have multiple same-named attributes in a symbol, there might be
more than one possibly way to classify existing attributes by the above
scheme.

I seem to recall multiple similarly named attributes were a potential
pain in the backside for editing, as you need to preserve the idea /
mapping of which specific attribute from which symbols correspond to a
particular row in the editing box.


Views:

For the "different values" cases, I would imagine (say), showing the
value in grey as "[Various]", or some other place-holder. (Perhaps even
providing a drop-down list of existing values?).

The "attribute does not exist in all objects" case might, for example be
represented by listing the attribute name in grey - or perhaps the whole
row in grey.

I'm presuming the action of editing an existing attribute will propagate
it to all symbols. We could even add a little "copy to all" icon in the
list for attributes which are not present in all symbols (if we wanted).

For the "different values" case, selecting one of the existing values
from a drop-down list would I imagine, force all selected objects to get
that value.

User edit an existing attribute, status 2. -> status 1.
                                 status 3. -> status 1. (I THINK!)
                                 status 4. -> status 1. (I THINK!)

I would just let the user rely on the normal undo mech. if they screw
something up in a way they didn't intend.


Good luck!


-- 
Peter Clifton

Electrical Engineering Division,
Engineering Department,
University of Cambridge,
9, JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge
CB3 0FA

Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!)
Tel: +44 (0)1223 748328 - (Shared lab phone, ask for me)



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