Re: [Audacity-quality] Edit Chains dialog "Num" display

[Gale A. <ga...@au...>]

| From Peter Sampson <pet...@ya...> 
| Thu, 21 Feb 2013 10:08:13 -0800 (PST)
| Subject: [Audacity-quality] Edit Chains dialog "Num" display
> Gale wrote:
> >If the command name is short, as in "Amplify", then the Command
> >column still only says "Com...". 
>  
> It looks particularly poor when you add a new Chain amd then all
> 3 columns are uglily, and unhelpfully, truncated., where to get:
> truncatedN...   Com ...   P... 

Yes, I said that. 


> I am a great believer in that GUIs should express clarity of purpose 
> wherever possible and this just doesn't imo.

It still needs someone to make time to find and make a fix.  


> Gale wrote:
> >So I don't know why a min width isn't set that displays the column title. 
> 
> So does this mean we can have this logged on Bugzilla as a bug?
> Albeit a low P-value bug.
>  
> Or are you going to say because it was designed that way it can't therefore
> be a bug,

I'm not going to pass comment on that, other than to say if it's 
like the Keyboard Preferences, fixing it may merely exchange 
the truncation for a default horizontal scrollbar. 

The code is in src/BatchProcessDialog if you want to take a 
look.  


> It smacks to me of the original developer and QA not testing propoerly prior
> to release.  

Was there any formal "QA" section when Chains was brought in? 


> It looks shoddy, we really should be concerned enough to fix it
> and the only way it will ever get fixed is if it is logged as a bug.

I have already saved my previous response should we wish to log 
it as a bug, but if Steve is intending to look at it, probably we can
save that overhead.

You are a "bug wrangler" on bugzilla so there is nothing to stop 
you adding the bug there if you think it important to add it today.
It would probably just scrape a P4, like the Windows issue of 
excessive width in the "Select Command" columns:
http://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=526 .
 
As you know there are dozens of P3 and below bugs not on Bugzilla.
There isn't the time to add lesser and not-fully-repeatable bugs, 
and I suspect there's not a lot of resources to fix them. 

Would you like to help me with adding some of those unlisted bugs? 



Gale  

 ________________________________
>  From: Gale Andrews <ga...@au...>
> To: audacity-quality <aud...@li...> 
> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 6:13 PM
> Subject: Re: [Audacity-quality] Edit Chains dialog "Num" display
>   
> 
> | From Peter Sampson <pet...@ya...> 
> | Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:09:50 -0800 (PST)
> | Subject: [Audacity-quality] Edit Chains dialog "Num" display
> > In working on the Manual page on Chains I have noticed 
> > that at default display mode (which is what we are constrained
> > by Connie to usually use in the Manual - and what the user
> > will see if they click on "File>Edit Chains...") in the right-hand 
> > dialog window displaying the Chain details the column for
> > numbering the Chain is not displayed adequately.
> >  
> > The "Num" column is insufficiently wide to display the "Num"
> > text - rather you get a truncated "N" followed by an ellipsis.
> > You can widen the column with click&drag, but few users
> > will bother to do that - so it ends up looking sloppy.
> >  
> > Therefore I am requesting that we consider widening the
> > Num column sufficently so that at default display the "Num" 
> > text in the column header is displayed properly.
> >  
> > See:
> > http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Chains_-_for_batch_processing_and_effects_automation
> > and
> > http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Edit_Chains
> 
> It's the same on all the OS'es, except worse on Mac because if 
> you try and drag the dividers between the columns in Chain,
> some or the entire text in the rows disappears until you reopen 
> Edit Chains. 
> 
> Also when you add a new Chain, you only see what looks like
> 
> I...  Com...  P.. 
> 
> for the column headings. 
> 
> If the command name is short, as in "Amplify", then the Command
> column still only says "Com...". 
> 
> So I don't know why a min width isn't set that displays the column title. 
> 
> And if there are not many parameters in the command, there is a wide
> empty column to right of the "Parameters" column. This may be harder 
> to fix, as you can see a related phenomenon in the table in Keyboard
> Prefs. There the "Key Combination" row is wide and so hides the 
> redundant column to right of it, but this creates a horizontal scrollbar. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Gale