Search or sort on buddy, etc.

[Dirk Hohndel]

On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 09:50:10PM -0700, Steve Ratts wrote:
> Are you familiar with how filters work on columns of data in Excel? What if
> a user could, for example, right click on a column in the list display and
> have a popup which is populated with the possible choices based on the log
> entries present in that column? This would be similar to the way when one
> is filling out dive site, buddy, DM, etc, they are offered choices based on
> what is already in the log database. By default, all the choices would be
> selected, but there would be a deselect all option, and one could then
> choose a set of one or more values they would like to filter on.

Yes, I think that's a very good way to think about filters for tag based
columns. This obviously wouldn't work for others like depth, duration,
etc.

Having the tag based data in columns would not work well when using the
"sorting" metaphor for filtering, but really using it as "show those that
include one of these values" would be great.
>
> This would be one possible way to implement filtering on columns. It would
> be helpful to also be able to configure which log parameters are selected
> to be displayed as columns. For that matter it would also be useful to be
> able to select which parameters to include when doing a CVS export.

So you already are able to select which columns to display (just
rightclick on the title row of the dive list), but as mentioned we don't
offer some of the data as columns - but I think this UI idea for filtering
would require us to add them all.

> Also, in the case of sorting on a column for which there are multiple
> entries, e.g. Buddies, I would think the column would be sorted on the
> first buddy entered for dives in which there is more than one buddy listed.
> No need to make it any harder than that. If it doesn't give the result the
> user desires, they may need to edit their dive log or wait for a filtering
> capability.

I worry about the logic here - we don't offer a way to change the order of
tags (or buddies) and we don't imply any semantic meaning by the order in
which they are given. So I would not allow regular sorting by these
columns at all.

/D