Re: [Gramps-devel] Questions x 4

[Don A. <don...@co...>]

Trevor Rhodes wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> A few questions.
> 
> Are the ID numbers after the parents names in the family view going to stay 
> there?  Will we have the ability to turn that off?

Well, the ID values have real value. For example, in my family, it seems 
that half of my ancestors are named "William". Without the ID values, 
there is no way of really making a distiction between them.

Could we turn them off? Yes, but this would probably have to be an option.


> Will the alphabetical tabs at the bottom of the people view be returned?  I 
> find them handier than a rather long list that takes longer to get through 
> than one tabs worth.

The alphabetical tabs were a hack to try to handle the horribly slow 
display times in the 1.0.X display lists. We've solved this problem in 
1.1 by going to a custom TreeModel, so the performance problem has gone 
away.

The multiple lists introduced several other problems. These included (as 
Alex indicated) the multiple selection problems. With typically 26 
views, if you hit the "Edit" button, you could potentially have 26 
different selections. Add to it the fact that you can have multiple 
people selected on a page, and it gets worse.

If you do an 'Edit->Merge', which people do we pick? The ones on the 
current active page? Then you can only merge people who have the same 
last name. Do we allow it cross pages? If so, which pages? You can more 
that one person selected per page.

There are a couple of possibilities:

1) Do nothing. Probably not the best solution.
2) Develop a better way of handling multiple tabs. (I like the feature,
    I'm just not sure that we can implement it correctly - I'm open to
    ideas)
3) Look for a reasonable alternative (these are not necessary exclusive
    of each other) . Possibly:
    * Alex's split view. As a long time emacs user, this has great appeal
      to me.
    * Emulate tabs using Filtering. Single page, but hide those not
      beginning with a certain letter with a filter.

> 
> Will the list of surnames in people view be left looking like they are in 
> Bold?  It's a little unsightly (at least to me).

At this point, this is just an experiment. Whether it stays or goes is 
up to user feedback. If everyone hates it, it goes. If everyone loves 
it, it stays. If it is about 50/50, it will become an option.

Heck, it probably won't completely go or stay. The question is "do we 
make this an option in the perferences dialog". If only one or two 
people want it one way and everyone else wants it another, we will 
probably make it a gconf option (kind of like enabling browse view in 
nautilus).

Don