GenealogyJ

nmeier · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:44:27 Post subject: GenJ 3.0 - under construction

Hi

Beginning of September I've started to refactor for GenJ 3.0 - you'll see continued checkin-messages as I'm working off a branch codenamed 'docket'

So what's this about?
1. new UI paradigm with MDI
2. plugin capabilities (using the experience we've gathered on the plugin branch)
3. friendlier usability for users
4. new help system

Screenshots and progress below.

Here's a made-up plan on what we're tackling when, subject to change ... a lot

Sprint #1 - basically cook a 3.0 acceptance test candidate everyone can test out

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

Looking good...but isn't the Navigator pane redundant?

nmeier · Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 19:22:18 Post subject:

Hi Paul

the idea about the navigator is still the same - if the user doesn't open another view that allows him to navigate 'sideways', 'up' or 'down' (maybe the tree doesn't show enough information or it's simply closed) then it'll allow to navigate in relatives terms.

We'll play with how it works - adjustments are going to be easy once all this is put together again.

Cheers
Nils

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

Point taken, should've engaged brain before typing Embarassed

nmeier · Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 6:56:23 Post subject:

progress - buttons are coming back

...

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

Looking good, can't wait to try this out!

nmeier · Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 19:51:07 Post subject:

ok, context menus work again, selection propagating nicely, support for plugins, actions can now hook up in better exposed places (example: reports, but can be anything now)

For those of you interested in trying to try this out (Paul, you're on the short-list) let me know.

General ideas and feedback on why this or that wouldn't work or work better regaring windowing (basically what's been missing for so long) already appreciated.

Won't be long now Smile

Cheers
Nils

nmeier · Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 19:55:17 Post subject:

Hi

I've uploaded a preview which you can download here

http://genj.sf.net/download/unstable/docking/genj_app-20091206.zip

(download and unzip into a new directory - DON'T UNPACK over your existing GenJ home folder - GenJ's settings are kept separate - play with this as a side-kick - double click on run.bat or genj.jar)

Disclaimer: trust me - it's just a preview Smile

Please don't look at it as a replacement for GenJ proper.

Still to go

+ re-enable printing
+ re-enable view settings
+ remember opened views
+ load/save asynchronously
+ various report tweaks (some settings won't work, report component-output won't show up where I want it)

You can post observation or comments in this thread.

Cheers
N

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

Should get chance to play with it in the next day or two but couldn't resist a quick look Very Happy

I think the main window needs to be 'bigger' as selecting views immediately after install seems to do nothing (unless the window is re-sized).

I'm trying to understand the way the windowing (tabs/panes) works in terms of proportion/location...need to experiment!

Are you going to keep 'undocking' in Nils? I guess it offers a similar mode of working to the 'old' version but I can't think why else it would be useful....

Paul

PeWu · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 67 Location: Warsaw, Poland

Hi!

I gave the new UI a quick look. I really like it. Here are my comments about the 2-minute glance.

1. The size of the window when I first started the app is, as Paul mentioned, too small. It looks like something's wrong.

2. The layout should be saved when I reenter the app. How about being able to switch between several saved layouts. I imagine I could have one for editing and another one for browsing the data.

3. Where do you plan to put report configuration?

4. I like the tabs/panes idea very much. I think everyone will be able to design a layout that suits them best.

Przemek

nmeier · Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:23:05 Post subject:

Hi Paul & Przemek

thanks for the feedback - yes, the layout state needs some work. I've added a list of open issues to the first post in this thread based on my short-list and your comments.

Paul, about undocking ... don't know yet. It's part of the library I'm using - maybe I'll turn it off. There's some stuff that the author of that thing and I are discussing.

Przemek, regarding report configuration - I figured I'll put them behind the ReportView's start button only. If users want to run a report through the global menu it should probably happen quick. If you run it through report views little run symbol you get the usual pick-a-report-and-configure-it dialog.

Love your idea about name-able layouts the user can switch back and forth between.

Cheers
Nils

nmeier · Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:24:29 Post subject:

Reports basically done now (there are some tweaks in report options I have to review based on some of Przemek's extensions I wanted to pull into the core report class)

Ekran · Joined: 26 Jan 2009 Posts: 36

I was away a long time and I am surprised to see these very interesting changes! I will try the next days....

Best regards!

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

Some more comments Laughing

Because it's possible to open the app when no views are remembered, the only indication that a file is loaded are the numbers by the icons in the status bar which seems less obvious than the old system where those details appear in a 'grid'. Also the loaded file name doesn't appear anywhere.

If I have Edit, Table and Tree views open, single clicks in the table cause the edit view to change but double clicks in Edit view are required to force a change in tree view (single clicks in tree view work the other way though!) I know I mentioned this in another post on the current 2.x version but I think it would be ideal if single clicks caused all views to sync.

When clicking on a particular (multimedia) FILE tag in Edit view with Tree and Table views open there seemed to be a noticeable pause with no views visible followed by a redraw of all windows. I suspect it's down to the file size of the image involved. As there aren't yet any options for each view (for example visible columns in Table view) there are probably lots of thumbnails being drawn too which won't help Wink

Do people use the 'Go back/forward one entity' buttons in Edit view? If the Tree or Table views are visible I imagine it would be less useful and possibly a little confusing; unless a person's NAME tag is highlighted(selected) in Edit view, using the back/forward buttons doesn't highlite them in an open Table view. (Er, better explanation... open Table and Edit views then navigate around a bit. On one of the people in the navigation history click on a tag other than NAME then navigate back/forwards again - they won't be highlighted in the table when they are current).

An option of having tags collapsed (in Gedcom mode) by default might be more important in the new version as there will probably be less screen space than before for an Edit view if users have Tree or Table views open.

Navigator and Entity views don't have a close button.

Is the Help menu supposed to be at top right in the main window?

I know it probably goes against the grain but is it time to lose terms like 'Entity' and 'Propagate'.... I think most non-technical users would be frightened by such terms but quite happy with 'records' and 'fields' (or 'Tags' or 'Labels')

I realise that this is probably a biggie but 'grab and drag' in Tree view tree would be much more intuitive... Ctrl+MouseZ also seems to have become 'mainstream' for zooming (eg Browsers, PDF viewers, OpenOffice etc).

I still can't quite work out the logic behind the dragging of views...

Keep going Nils, this is getting good!

nmeier · Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 7:02:35 Post subject:

Hi Paul

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

nmeier · Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 16:07:42 Post subject:

Hi Paul;

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

Yes, it's big PNG's that are the problem in both versions...hideously slow to load (could have sworn I'd converted all my images to jpegs, obviously not, thanks to this glitch for spotting the remaining png!). Very Happy

nmeier · Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 18:48:21 Post subject:

Help integrated - note, this is the existing help atm which is going to be replaced by context-sensitive help in the future.

New build to play with should be up by the end of the week.

Cheers
Nils

nmeier · Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 7:17:34 Post subject:

Hi

another build is up as promised - see

http://genj.sourceforge.net/download/unstable/docking/genj_app-20091219.zip

Cheers
Nils

p.s. unzip in a separate folder from GenJ 2.x - double-click on run.jar or run.bat if the former doesn't work
p.p.s. again, settings are kept separate from GenJ 2.x
p.p.p.s. previous plugins, GeoView will not work, language files going to available shortly

jrfloquet · Joined: 08 Aug 2005 Posts: 15 Location: Lorraine - France

Super la petite disquette à coté des événements naissance et décés de l'éditeur classique; Ainsi l'on peut ajouter directement des photographies d'actes sans changer d'éditeur. Razz

Manque plus qu'un bouton pour visualisé le document.
Cette possibilité ajoutée à chaque événement, ce sera parfait. Wink

_________________
JR
Ma genealogie
http://gw.geneanet.org/index.php3?b=jrfloquet

nmeier · Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2009 20:22:29 Post subject:

new *newer* version (bug reported by Daniel in 20th's)

genj_app-20091221.zip

there's more buttons nwo - on peut utiliser le 'context menu' pour les images pour ouvrir un visualisation externe.

Cheers
Nils

nmeier · Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 14:24:14 Post subject:

Hi

new xmas version is up - mostly w/ changes to basic editor (more little popups, more info around relationships of people and records).

http://genj.sourceforge.net/download/unstable/20091224/genj_app-20091224.zip

Merry Christmas

Nils

nmeier · Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 22:14:43 Post subject:

latest version

http://genj.sourceforge.net/download/unstable/20091228

Cheers
Nils

Peter from Germany · Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 126 Location: Munich

Nils

you do a great work.

Ich probiere das nightly schon aus, da ich im Januar wieder einen Kurs halte.
Hilft es, wenn ich hier oder per Email melde, welche Funktionen noch nicht gehen?

Peter

Rolf · Joined: 29 Dec 2009 Posts: 1

nmeier · Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 20:12:50 Post subject:

Thanks, Peter

Was geht, und was nicht ist wichtige Info momentan - starte einfach einen neuen Thread (auch in Deutsch) hier im dev Forum, damit wir alles ins reine kriegen vor einem Release im Januar.

Tschuess
Nils

nmeier · Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 20:13:42 Post subject:

Hi Rolf

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

OK here's a bunch of observations, ideas and recycled wish-list items that I thought might be worth mentioning. Sorry if they're not in a sensible order, hopefully the numbers will help with replies Laughing

1 Double-click on person in table view or tree view should centre tree view on that person but they're often off screen
2 How do you arrange views in 'tab style' (as per default install views) after dragging them around?
3 Treeview: Mousewheel zoom isn't linked to slider control
4 Treeview: click and drag for moving view of tree would be great Smile

5 When double-clicking on a relation at bottom of edit view it's very slow to switch to that person
6 How does one access more than one multimedia file for an individual in standard edit view?
7 It's difficult to compare performance with previous version as can't set blueprints hide columns etc
8 Generally switching between views (tabs) or using navigation arrows is sluggish (only using 10% of 0.5Gb memory allocated) but rendering of tree and timeline views is good
9 In standard edit view, occupation events have the word Occupation Ixxx near the top of the tab whereas other events dont seem to have such a 'title'
10 Would it be possible to have a single 'Events' tab as most events share a common set of sub-tags e.g. date, place, note, source etc? Some of my ancestors have a lot of events and the concept of a tab for each is messy.
11 How to associate a source with a particular event in standard edit view?
12 A means to select individuals for timeline view would be good - even a simple from/to date filter at the top would be good Wink

13 Is there any point in having a drop-down list for given names in edit view??
14 Does entity view have a purpose?
15 If I bring up search view the window isn't properly drawn immediately below and left of the 'Search' tab title (caption or whatever it's called).
16 The view notes icon/button in table view doesn't seem to work
17 Can the small icons in edit view be removed (eg those by birth, death, multimedia etc)? They just add to the clutter IMHO - I've only just figured out what that icon is by the birth field LOL
18 The options to 'make root in family tree' and 'bookmark in family tree' seem out of place on the context menu in edit view - if you wanted to make a person root in the tree presumably you would then want to view the tree; you might as well switch back to the tree view and double click the individual.
19 Why not make the multimedia display area 4:3 proportion to make it more suitable to natural image sizes, it would free up space.
20 'Nick' or alternate names aren't visible in standard edit view
21 'Grab focus on context change' is techno-babble! (I'm not sure what it does either!)
22 Should switch standard/gedcom editing mode really be in options instead?
23 Search view: Regular expressions - why not just parse for *?! etc in the search string and treat them as regex characters as they probably have no place in users data as literals. I doubt that many users would bother with anything beyond wildcards anyway.
24 If tag paths are worth keeping the tags presented should be reviewed e.g. I think searching for places could be useful but user might not know if place of interest is in a birth, residence or occupation event for example. Why not just change the 'Tag path' label to 'Search in:' - it'd be much more user friendly...
25 The search 'go' button isn't immediately obvious and a 'clear' button would be very useful Very Happy

26 Search view: Not sure how useful the context menu is. An option (in options!) to choose the action of a double-click on search results would be great e.g. 'Double-click on search results opens record in Edit View | Tree View'
27 A single line for each search result containing just the persons name/id and the line or tag containing the search term found would be better IMHO
28 Report view: The 'start report' button should be labelled 'Choose Report' or similar and I think it would be better if the attached code (to opn the report chooser dialog) was executed automatically when opening a report view.
29 When running a second report in an already-open report view it would make sense to have the 'individual chooser dialog' default to whichever individual has focus in the edit, tree or table view (if open).
30 I think the navigator view would be more user-friendly if the buttons were larger and were labelled 'father', 'mother' etc and the 'tooltips' showed the name of the individual the button would 'lead to'.
31 Navigator view: The name of the current individual might be better displayed by centring it in the top panel and using a large font
32 Genj might benefit from a back up tool - a basic tool to create a zip in a place of the users choice would do. If users were advised to keep their multimedia files in a folder under /ged, for example /ged/media, their files could be backed up too by archiving /ged.
33 An option to save all or some of the tree view window would eliminate the need for graphical charts as found in many other family history programs.
34 A global search and replace would be very handy (for example for correcting an address or a bunch of multimedia file paths Smile

)
35 I think Help->Content should read Help->Contents
35 Should all views automatically close when File->Close is chosen? It seems odd to have, for example, a report output visible for a file thats no longer open
36 I think the number of results from a search should be displayed in a better place

EDIT:
37 Create parents while in Tree view - nothing seems to happen although switch to edit view and they have been created.

I realise some of this is outside the scope of the version in-hand but thought it might be worth flaging them up again ;D

Cheers

Paul

nmeier · Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2009 21:35:23 Post subject:

Hi Paul

another long list, thanks Wink

Peter from Germany · Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 126 Location: Munich

Peter from Germany · Joined: 17 Jul 2005 Posts: 126 Location: Munich

GEDCOM check report and Editor parallel

When working on the results of the GEDCOM check report I normally want to correct the error by double clicking on the error line and correcting in the editor. But I would like to see both in parallel.
How could this be done?

Peter

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

The 'notes' and multimedia buttons in Table view aren't working on my XP system either. I double-checked and the note tags are top level (immediately subordinate) to the INDI tag as in the example.ged rather than notes attached to events etc. Mulimedia displays ok when the table is set to display individuals and in other views.

Where's the log stored Nils?

Peter, I hear what you say about switching edit modes but if the standard edit mode was well crafted why would you need to do that?

MWH · Joined: 07 Aug 2004 Posts: 122 Location: Arkansas

Haven't played with the new tabbed version much, but here are my thoughts FWIW in reference to Pauls post above:

Item#13: The point of this drop down list was because the same names tend to appear over and over again in some families. If the name is long or some unusual spelling, this can be very handy, especially when entering large amounts of data from a source such as a family tree book.

Item#18: The make root in tree option has been useful to me in the past. I have played with this a bit, and it does bring a different view in the tree than what happens when simply selecting an individual. If you navigate through relatives in the editor, there can come a point where making the person root makes them easier to find. It would be nice if when a person is made root it also centered that person in the tree view. Didn't this happen in a prior version? It does seem to behave a bit differently in this new incarnation than I remember, but it has been a while since I've done any intensive work with GenJ like I used to.

Item#19: Many of the older pictures I encounter are square. And, if this is fixed to 4:3, is it landscape or portrait? As it is now, it seems the area where a photo appears changes size/shape depending on the size of the edit window. It might make sense though to allow this area to be sized independently to make room for other things if desired.

Item#22: As long as there is a toolbar on the editor view, having that icon there surely doesn't cause any problem, and there are times that being able to quickly switch over to a view that is more in line with the structure of the GEDCOM file can be nice.

Item#30: At one point I had suggested the Navigator as a more graphical means to add a relative to the currently viewed entity. So, for example, if there is no Mother present for this person, double clicking on this icon would offer an opportunity to add the Mother. See my post here: http://genj.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=312

Item#31: I like that idea

Item#34: You might not have noticed, since it is a bit obscure, but if you change an existing address in the editor you get a little box that lets you apply that change to all identical entries. Hardly a global S&R, but does let you make some global changes right now.

A couple of other ideas in that old post I mentioned above might be worth looking at again too.

M

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

Hi MWH,

Paul · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 75 Location: England

Further to my post about notes buttoon in table view not working, here's a screen grab - according to the status bar I have no notes or multimedia although the multimedia thumbs are visible in the table and my file is choc-full-o'notes. Sorry Nils Confused

EDIT:
The status bar says no multimedia in example.ged too.

There's something odd going on with notes. If I create and edit a new note for someone then click 'ok' all seems well. If I then save the file the contents of the note disappear.