feature request: multi-valued buddies list

[Jef Driesen]

On 2013-03-04 07:40, Dirk Hohndel wrote:
> Jan Schubert <Jan.Schubert at GMX.li> writes:
>>>> I frequently dive with many buddies - just list them all under
>>>> "buddy". From a UI perspective a solution that separately picks 
>>>> zero
>>>> to n buddies (hey, there are solo divers, too) is just completely
>>>> unusable.
>>
>> I would support this as one have to edit the whole list in case one 
>> of
>> the buddies changes. But nothing we should aim to be included in 
>> 3.0.2.
>
> I /really/ want to see a UI mockup for this one. It needs to be
> a) easy for the casual diver
> b) easy for the active diver with lots and lots of buddies
> c) not cause a massive waste of screen real estate for the complex 
> case
> that confuses the simple case
>
> I claim that the current solution achieves all three. I have more 
> than
> two dozen buddies and more than a dozen different combinations of
> buddies in my buddy list. And it usually takes me a couple of letters
> and maybe a few cursor-downs to get to whatever group I'm diving
> with. Or I have to type them in anew because I haven't been diving 
> with
> this particular group before. All this is very easy and straight
> forward.

I once implemented the following UI to support an unlimited number of 
buddies. I simply had a list view showing all the buddies on that 
particular dive. In edit mode, I show an additional checkbox next to the 
name to select/unselect buddies. Typing scrolls automatically to the 
first match. See a screenshot here:

http://www.subaquaclub.be/users/jefdriesen/tmp/screenshots/divemanager-dive-general.png

If I had to re-implement this again, I would do it slightly different. 
Keep the listview, but add a combobox on top where you can select or 
type a buddy (with auto completion of course). When hitting enter, it 
gets added to the listview. Or integrate the combobox directly into the 
listview, with an placeholder last row to add new entries.

Another alternative is something like macdive does, although I don't 
know if gtk supports this:

http://www.mac-dive.com/help/images/b/ba/Inspector_general.jpg

Jef