On Tue, 2003-09-09 at 09:30, John N S Gill wrote:
Thanks again.!) open the dialog 2) click in the entry box at the bottom (I guess you would prefer having it pre-selected rather than the sort range. Hmm, users that first open the dialog and then select the sort range prefer the sort range to be preselected. There are probably more users that select the sort range before) 3) type Z1 into the box (would be nicer if we just had to type Z) 4) click add 5) click okthat is better. re 3. would be better if there was a drop-down list of the columns not already in the sort specification as opposed to having to enter a cell/range (again, maybe i'm missing something here...).
A drop down list of potentially 65300+ items? Remember we could be sorting a sheet of records where the records are columns so we need to specify rows...
maybe i'm stupid, but it took me a long time to work out that the entry box at the bottom and the Add button were related + one wouldn't work without the other. Also when i entered 'z1' into the entry box i made the mistake of hitting 'Enter', which seems to be equivalent to pressing OK -- i think enter in this entry box should add the field.
I would agree.
i think the dialog would be more obvious with something like: Add sort field: [drop down list of fields that could be added]
see above. There are potentially too many fields for this to work in general. It is surprising how long it takes to add 65000 items to a drop down list (even if only because the user accidentally clicked `sort left-right')
(not sure if it would be nice or confusing if selecting something from the drop down automagically added it or whether you should make the user)(I am not sure why you want to move it, in fact since it is the only column there is no need to move it unless yo are changing your mind or we finally remember the sort specifications)my bad -- had the preference set to 3 (when i set it to zero i hadn't yet figured out how to 'add' fields so i went back to 3). anyway, agree that once you learn how the dialog works + set your prefereneces accordingly it isn't much slower than the old one (fixing enter in the add entry box woud make a big difference)
I'll have a look how we can do that.
I can see though that if you use large ranges and sort by a single column the old dialog would be faster. In fact an earlier incantation of the new dialog (where we had a column of `use' checkboxes would have also been useful.)yes -- i wondered about checkboxes -- but then you get into that 'check-all' uncheck all stuff.
Exactly the reason why they didn't stay.
I think (hope?) that once the system remembers sort specifications (as requested by lots of people) you will like the idea of having a dialog that makes it easier to change th esettings (versus entering them completely new)Remembering settings would be a great help.
For many purposes that is nearly more important than the perfect dialog.
thanks for the help -- i think i can live with the new dialog, but i do feel the add field stuff needs some work.
You are welcome and thank you very much for your comments. Andreas -- Andreas J. Guelzow <aguelzow taliesin ca> Taliesin
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