request for review and testing: default file name

[Jef Driesen]

On 2012-09-13 01:11, Dirk Hohndel wrote:
> Jef Driesen <jefdriesen at telenet.be> writes:
>>
>> Let's say you have a personality A with a certain file X associated.
>> What happens if you load another file Y and save it? Does the
>> personality A gets linked with the new file Y, or does it stay 
>> linked to
>> the original file X? What if I adjust the settings after opening Y? 
>> Are
>> these changes saved to the personality, or are these changes only
>> temporary?
>
> Personality has nothing to do with loading and saving files.
> The only thing that would change is the file that is loaded by 
> default
> if you start Subsurface without a filename on the command line.

I'm a bit confused now.

If the default filename is only used at application startup, when no 
filename is explicitly given on the command line, then I think your 
proposal is exactly the same as mine. Except that I would remember the 
last used file and load that at startup, while you remember the last 
used personality and load its default file. Am I right about that?

I believe the fundamental difference between your and mine proposal is 
what happens when you switch to another personality when subsurface is 
already running. In my proposal switching to another personality would 
never load another file, because a personality simply doesn't have any 
filename associated. But I think that with your proposal, switching to 
another personality would also mean loading the default file associated 
with that personality? At least that's what I understand when you wrote 
this:

> And if you did that, and then change personality, then that current
> datafile is closed (with questions whether to save if needed) and the
> default file for the other personality is opened.

Am I understanding you correctly so far? The reason why I said I'm a 
bit confused is that at the start of your mail you wrote "Personality 
has nothing to do with loading and saving files", but my interpretation 
of the previous paragraph means switching personality does involve 
loading and saving files. Also, what would happen if you switch 
personality when you have opened a file other than the default? Would 
you also close the current file and load the default file of to the new 
personality? I guess the answer will be yes, to keep the behavior 
consistent, but I'm not really sure whether that is indeed your 
intention.

Anyway, assuming my understanding is correct so far, I think our 
proposals are both reasonable, they just target a different use-case. 
Let me explain in more detail:

If you consider the personality to be used mainly to support multiple 
"divers", then yes I think your proposal is better. Let's say I have 
created a personality for myself and my wife, then I think it makes 
perfect sense to also switch files when switching personality.

But if you consider it to be used to support different "views" of the 
same data, then I think my proposal works better. Let's say I have setup 
a rec and tec personality, and a logbook containing both tec and rec 
dives. (I would prefer to have just a single logbook file, but I don't 
do tec dives, so this is just hypothetical.) In this case switching 
personality shouldn't load another file, only view it differently and 
that's what my proposal is all about. The tec/rec is just an example of 
course, and you can setup all kinds of views, like metric/imperial, etc.

Multiple divers on the same system account, or multiple logbooks per 
diver are still supported in my proposal. But it's achieved through the 
standard file open/close file functionality, not the personality 
feature. As far as the application is confirmed, it doesn't matter 
whether subsurface is being used by multiple divers, a single diver with 
multiple logbooks, or just for viewing some random file from someone 
else. It's just another file.

I think that in the end it comes down to deciding which scenario we 
consider the most important: multiple divers or multiple views?

If I have to answer that question, I would say views. As Henrik already 
mentioned before, ideally multiple users should have different system 
account. However we all know that isn't always the case (my wife refuses 
to use a separate account because she doesn't want to switch accounts 
whenever she needs to use a pc). That's why it's important to support 
opening different files. If I would go back to the libreoffice analogy, 
my wife and I have both our own set of documents, but libreoffice itself 
doesn't care about the actual owner of the document. It's just another 
file. And that's also how I would design a logbook application like 
subsurface.

> The whole point is to make things EASY for people who do easy things
> (people who want one datafile for themselves and one for the spouse),
> but to make most complicated things possible, too (so if I want to 
> look
> at a datafile someone sends me to look at their dives (or debug an
> issue) I can either open it from the command line or I can close my
> default data file and open the one that was sent to me.

Of course, nobody wants to make things more difficult or non-intuitive. 
On the contrary!

I think the only use-case that might become a little less convenient is 
the case where you have two divers, one a rec diver and the other a tec 
diver. To switch from one diver to another, you would have to load 
another file and switch personality. But that's definitely not the most 
common situation.

For the rest, loading another file (with my proposal), or switching to 
another personality (with your proposal) is equally easy.

> Again - not what I envision. It's a different idea, one that I don't
> find nearly as useful to the majority of users.

No problem if you disagree. I just wanted to share and explain my 
vision, just like I want to understand yours too.

Jef