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| QSA ToolWorks Public Feedback Forum > Redesigned User Editor > User Editor Wish List | You are not logged in. Login or Register. |
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| Author: | Topic: User Editor Wish List | |||
Matt Posts: 107 Registered: 2003-02-16  mstrange@mac.com  |
 Posted: Jun 23, 2003 1:41:20 pm    
The User Editor code is very skanky (note how it takes over the menu bar, etc.) and needs to be completely reworked for OS X. At the same time, we would like to add (or at least build foundational support for) some new features. Once we have refined our internal spec, we'll post it here. In the meantime, feel free to post your wish list items here. (Be sure to click "New Reply" - donot click "New Post") FYI, here are some items already on the list...
- Edited by Matt on: Jun 23, 2003 1:47:02 pm
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chuckbo Posts: 42 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
 Posted: Jun 23, 2003 1:53:41 pm
Since you asked, I want to see Users that are created via prototypes to inherit changes that are made to the prototypes. (And it's inadequate to create a "shared" user, in case anyone wonders.) Matt sez: that's what is meant by 'alias users' - prototype users are used to create new instances of a user that can then be modified. The alias user type will inherit the characteristics of the user it is aliased from, and if the original is changed, the aliased one changes to match. - Edited by Matt on: Jun 24, 2003 3:46:47 pm |
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gmorin Posts: 3 Registered: 2003-04-11 |
Posted: Jul 10, 2003 9:46:26 am
Another feature request: the ability to access the user by using an ovrerriding Admin password. Which brings up another idea... better password control i.e. force user to password of a certain length with a min mix of letters and numbers upper or lower case and being forced to change on a certain schedule and the ability to generate a password at a random if the user can't think of (i.e. an option for them to choose, to have the system give them a new password when the time is right) Another thing I would like to see changed... When you add a view to a menu and then change that view later in design mode, when you go back into user mode the view retains the size and position used in user mode. Matt sez: all good stuff. thanks. - Edited by Matt on: Jul 10, 2003 1:04:26 pm |
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| lucidlee Posts: 18 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Jul 14, 2003 8:26:05 am
In user rather than design mode I would like to be able to determine the fate of a user who has not used the system for a period of time - send a prompt, automatically log off or do nothing. Matt sez: That's what is meant by "Event Trigger: on idle" - Edited by Matt on: Sep 16, 2003 12:00:53 pm
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| dougb Posts: 2 Registered: 2003-08-05 |
Posted: Aug 05, 2003 8:06:47 pm
I would like to see the "views list" also show each permission status in adjacent columns (like a spreadsheet), so that one could more quickly assess a user's "permission profile".
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| chuckbo Posts: 42 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Aug 14, 2003 12:05:04 pm
While you're at it, how can we make the permissions in the "spreadsheet view" updateable? It gets really tedious to go through 40 or 50 views for a user, changing permissions for each one. chuck Matt sez: A spreadsheet seems to unweildy to me. (picture hundreds of users and thousands of views). How about some sort of "apply to all" mechanism - something like "hold the option key down while clicking the checkbox to apply this permission to everybody." Or perhaps we look at it from the view's angle (maybe an option springing from View's Get Info window that let's you set the default permissions for the view and then each user can override the permissions? - Edited by Matt on: Sep 16, 2003 11:59:58 am |
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| Fred Posts: 57 Registered: 2003-04-10 |
Posted: Sep 01, 2003 4:54:01 am
Cosmetic One thing that I would appreciate seeing is the keyboard displaying the current keyboard setting. Fred Matt sez: but... what about the designer who is laying out menus for users who will be using "who knows what" style of keyboard? We did think of this, but the problems are complex. For example, I'm working on a laptop that does not have F13-F15 keys, numeric keypad... how will I assign those for people who do have those keys? And what if I plug a different keyboard in via USB (or there's a bluetooth keyboard nearby)? Which keyboard do we show? Not a bad idea, just a complex one. - Edited by Matt on: Sep 16, 2003 12:04:53 pm |
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| Matt Posts: 107 Registered: 2003-02-16 mstrange@mac.com |
Posted: Sep 16, 2003 1:30:16 pm
Recently suggested enhancement: ability to embed hierarchials within hierarchials. - Edited by Matt on: Sep 16, 2003 7:37:42 pm
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dkuchta Posts: 40 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Sep 16, 2003 9:00:54 pm
Hierarchicals within hierarchicals: This strikes me as a "nice to have" but by no means necessary. I think good user interface design would dictate staying away from multiple levels of hierarchical menus - too hard to navigate, especially on a portable's trackpad. Still, I can imagine situations where it would be handy to have this feature if a clean user interface is not your primary goal. Often, tools I create for personal use fall into this category and I don't pay nearly as much attention to the UI. I'd probably make use of this feature from time to time if it was there. But it would fall pretty low on my list of priorities. Just my 2 cents. -Dan Kuchta
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| chuckbo Posts: 42 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Sep 17, 2003 12:45:55 am
Regarding being able to more easily change lots of permissions for lots of views and lots of users ... I agree that the spreadsheet layout will also get overrun somewhat quickly; it's only a stepwise improvement over what we have now. So let's step back and test our goals paradigms. 1) We want to be avoid having to set similar permissions person after person. I think we've already covered that quite well by allowing changes to user [aliases] cascade to all users who inherit that [alias's] permissions. 2) We want to avoid having to set the same permission view after view. Can we consider implementing a similar solution for views, that is, have View prototypes? Let's say that my Read-only prototype permits Find, Display, and Export and nothing else. If we had a list of views, we could cmd-click or shift-click to select a set of them and then indicate that they should all inherit the read-only prototype permissions. A question to consider is whether we want to provide a way to make that association when we drag out a new view (or define a new view), or is it only done in the User window? That also makes me wonder whether it's non-intuitive to define View prototypes as part of the User window. Maybe the different types of view prototypes should be defined on a Preferences pane, and then they can be set when we do a Get Info on a view. That would be a way to modify a specific one at a time and would be practical, as long as you're not trying to set a whole bunch. I kind of like the idea of adding a View Prototype icon to the icon well of the relations. Perhaps, when you open it, you can set the permissions along the left-hand column (kind of like we do now). The far right-hand column would be a listbox of views that inherit this view's permissions. The middle column would be a list of all other views, and they could be dragged into the third column. Special case 1: the view is already associated with a different view prototype ("VP"), so dragging it into another VP's column would disassociate the view from the original VP. Special case 2: if I edit a view's permissions in a User object and that view was already associated with a VP, then I would break that association (consider a dialog box warning the user that the inheritance [but don't use the word 'inheritance' in the dialog box] is about to be severed). I'm certain that the idea can be made smoother, but, hopefully, this'll kickstart some more ideas. chuck matt sez: references to 'prototype' changed to 'alias' in item 1. Item 2 is a lot to chew on, and I think it's quite good. We'll kick that around a bit and see what comes of it. - Edited by Matt on: Sep 17, 2003 10:52:40 am |
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keVin Posts: 30 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Sep 19, 2003 10:25:26 am
quote: I've worked with many Collections that are permission-dependent. With ten or more Users, adding a new View with the current featue set is quite time consuming. The ability to set default permissions when the View is created would be a welcomed feature. 
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| chuckbo Posts: 42 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Sep 19, 2003 2:18:12 pm
I was just re-reading the note I posted, and I realize that I thought one thing and typed a different word. I mentioned having a View Prototype in the icon well. I meant to suggest that it would be in the Collections window, not in the Relations window. That way, you could define the permissions that go with a default and then use the default throughout the collection. We (or, at least, I) encourage you to post some sketches if you want feedback. Or, if you have interest, feel free to solicit some sketches from us. I can plainly see what I'm describing, but I worry that the long descriptions can make the ideas intimidating. Matt sez: an icon for setting the prototypes sounds like overkill. There must be a cleaner solution. As for sketches... we don't have much we can release yet (it's always unnerving toshow something and then have to backtrack). If you want to do sketches, send them to features@helixtech.com - Edited by Matt on: Sep 19, 2003 3:45:31 pm |
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| lucidlee Posts: 18 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Sep 27, 2003 11:25:03 am
quote: If I understand it right Chuck is sort of advocating the use of protypes in the meaning that they have when talking about style sheets in MS Word. I would certainly suppor t the ability to create prototype templates and views which describe consistent usage throughout the collection. Moreover, that they can be built as a hierarchy of prototypes and editing the prototype results in changes rippling through the collection except for those object that are are 'detached' from the template after creation. Given that these features are common in modern software - MS Office, Adobe, Servoy R2 -and also in internet standards such as CSS ,, I think its a feature that needs to be designed into future Helix architecture even if not implemented in the next version.
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Michael S. Scaramella, Esq. Posts: 7 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Oct 28, 2003 10:00:35 am
I previously submitted the following as a feature request, but since it is directly related to this forum topic, I am posting it here: Form View for Setting Form Permissions It is currently quite difficult to be certain that form permissions for a particular view have been set properly in all user icons. Currently, each user icon must be opened individually and the settings compared. This can be a slow and error prone process in a large collection with many views and many user prototypes and sub-menus. I suggest that a “Show Permissions” command be added to the View menu in Design Mode. When selected, the view should list all user icons together with the form permissions granted. The ability to reset permission flags in this view would be desirable. However, if this is difficult to do technically, I suggest making this view act like the Get Info window. If a listed user icon is double-clicked, the user icon should open and the list of views should auto-scroll to the view which should be automatically selected.
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| binfordjc Posts: 5 Registered: 2003-07-09 |
Posted: Mar 03, 2004 3:47:51 pm
Hierarchicals within hierarchicals: Hierarchicals presently are painful. Any help would be appreciated. One of my collections has 6 hiearchical Relations on one subject and numerous other subjects with up to 14+ hierarchical Relations..
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| chuckbo Posts: 42 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Mar 12, 2004 12:55:04 pm
Jack, you really aren't talking about hierarchical menus, are you. If you are, do you mean that it's difficult to build them or to use them? Or, are you talking about cascading dynamic popups (i.e. one popup is for Country, and next one popup gives you states with the selected country, and the next popup gives you counties within the selected state, ...)? Compared to other tools, Helix seems, to me, to be much easier to create these popups, but I'm keeping an open mind. Can you describe an improvement? Maybe point us to another program you've used that does it better. chuck |
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| keVin Posts: 30 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Apr 08, 2004 2:25:22 pm
Helix successfully began by adopting Apple's way of doing things when possible. This reduced (but did not eliminate) the learning curve. Take a look at where permissions are established in OS X -- the Get Info window. This is supplemented by a global user preference called "Accounts." The Limitations tab has options for No Limits, Some (selectable) Limits, or Simple Finder. There is also a Keyboard Shortcuts tab under Keyboard. It seems logical to adopt a similar approach within Helix. The OS X Accounts and Keyboard Shortcuts idea could be merged into a hybrid preference. The Get Info window for view icons can establish default permissions and expand to reveal current permissions for existing users. The "Accounts" preference can offer more options -- disabling access to a form with or without favorable permissions. If it is no longer possible drag menu items directly in place, menu items can be added similarly to the Keyboard Shortcuts. Click the "+" symbol and define. This even supports hierarchicals. The Alias users could, by default be the three (definable) tabs: No Limits, Some Limits, and Simple. Each created user, by default, inherits one of these (prototypes). It may be possible to override but a button can be clicked to Restore Defaults (of the Alias user) or Update (new additions) in the Alias user. (This is similar to how Master Pages work within InDesign.) New created views (with their associated permissions) can be inherited from the master Alias when the Update button is pressed. Likely, the Update button would be within the master Alias user and the Restore Defaults within the individual Alias. - Edited by keVin on: Apr 09, 2004 8:44:08 pm |
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| keVin Posts: 30 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Apr 17, 2004 10:05:45 pm
Becoming accustomed to multiple users on a single Mac brings another Helix opportunity to light. Currently only one user can login to Classic hence one use Helix (regardless of the number of licenses). It would be nice to run a self-contained Server accessible by other users on the same OS X computer. As users login to the Mac (later Windows XP) they can visit the Helix Server running from a different User. Each user could thereby interact with the same Collection rather than a copy or quitting the same Collection to open it with another user. It also would be a great way for developers to test and debug Collections intended for networked environments. And, of course, this would lead to more Client/Server licenses being purchased. |
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| lucidlee Posts: 18 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Jun 16, 2004 1:15:55 pm
This is pretty much what you get when you install mySQL. It runs as a root processthat any active user can access. So that sorts out the data storage. Trouble is that in Helix the server can only handle one database at a time, which is OK unless user B wants to work on a different Collection to user A. Would you see that B can swap out A or will the server need to clone itself and serve as many databases as users? Important once fast user switchng behaviour becomes the norm. In my brief/narrow experience people tend to leave their workspace in a specific state and want to come back to it in exactly that state.
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| binfordjc Posts: 5 Registered: 2003-07-09 |
Posted: Oct 06, 2004 7:29:54 pm
Permissions: In my cad program, I open a popup window showing all the 255 levels in the drawing, select whichever ones I want to appear together, then save them as a Plot Spec. Then to plot, I select all the normal things (printer, paper size, orientation, etc.) and also Plot Specs, and out comes a drawing. There is no redundency in levels; the same level can be used in many different plot specs. Using the same concept in Helix would involve opening a popup window of Users, selecting the ones to be granted a given permission, saving that selected group as a Permission Name (or selecting from another popup window with the available Permission Names). The same User would be selectable under as many Permission Names as desired. Opening any given Permission Name would display the list of Users with that permission. Perhaps this would help. Jack
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| binfordjc Posts: 5 Registered: 2003-07-09 |
Posted: Oct 06, 2004 8:29:11 pm
Chuck, On hierarchicals: Continents Countries in Continents States in Countries Counties in States Companies in Counties Individuals in Companies. Dynamic Popups? Yes. Hierarchical? Yes. Doable? Yes. Messy? Yes; UseFroms galore. Some of instruments I sell can get by on a single selection level. Others have 14 or more selection levels, each level being a sub-selection on the previous level. Even more Dynamic Popups with even more UseFroms. For example, about 14 relations for the KT19, another 14 for the KT15, another 10 for the KT-X, another 12 for KT18, and that is only one product line. Easy to use? Yes. Difficult to set up? More tedious than difficult, and error prone. If I had a display about 5'x5', and could get all the levels showing at the same time, with all their requisite abacii, fields, templates showing at the same time, I could likely trace thru with minor complications, but if they aren't visible, my personal memory circuits start dropping level 1 when I add level 3. I refer to it as prenatal Alzheimer's since I've had the problem for almost as long as I can remember. Do I have any other software that does or would do the job? No. Could it be done easier in Helix? I don't know. It is up to me to suggest, but up to Helix to decide. Jack
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| chuckbo Posts: 42 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Oct 07, 2004 1:19:31 pm
Jack, this thread may get booted -- I think we're wandering from Matt's topic to a different topic (and one specific to you). I was following you until you reached the part about the QTnn items and how different product lines have a different number of relations, and that normally shouldn't matter. I think you've hit on it with the statement that it's not hard, but it's tedious. If I use Visual Basic or Access if's harder (or more error-prone) but less tedious, because I can type some lines of code faster than I can construct an abacus, and even faster if I'm pasting lines. But the speed often catches up with me later when it's time to debug and I find simple errors. Though when I get a half dozen Use Froms in a relation, if I'm not careful, I may select the wrong one. But to bring this thread back to QSA-relevance (though not on User Editor), what I think this description would lead to would be the desire to have a 3rd party plugin that can generate the hierarchical popups. Kind of like a Wizard in Dreamweaver or Access. But I don't plan to stand on one foot waiting for the version of Helix that has an open API for development. But it'd be cool. chuck |
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| Jeff Turner Posts: 4 Registered: 2004-10-31 |
Posted: Oct 31, 2004 12:34:48 pm
I hope I am putting this request in the right place. Let me confess to you that I am not a programmer, rather an end user who developed several databases with Helix out of necessity back in the mid 1990’s. We do things with our homegrown program that no one else in our industry is doing that I have been able to find. So, with that behind me, I would love to be able to edit the collection without having to take it off-line. Is that “Non-Modal Editing”? I would really love that. The two consultants I work with who are “real” computer people are working me over my loyalty to “Helix”. It is not just the hours invested over the last ten years that make it hard to move to another application. It is the ability to do what we want, when we want and have full control of the outcome. It is hard to have a sense of the scale of the Helix community and I sometimes wonder if the OSX version is really going to happen. In the mean time the “real” guys are beating me over the head with “FileMaker” and “4D”. I am new to the forum and will try to read more than write for fear of saying something too “end user” like. Thanks for the opportunity to learn from all of you, even if I don’t understand half of what you are saying.
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| Ryan Wilcox Posts: 32 Registered: 2003-04-17 |
Posted: Nov 01, 2004 11:08:09 am
See helixtech.com/1Product/helix6/ for some information about the progress towards OS X. The progress looks interesting, but there hasn't been an update in a while. Matt and Gil - we hunger for updates!  The way I always approach a New And Better Technologies is this: does moving to this New And Better technology mean I have to redo lots of work? Does it make it harder to modify myself, or am I suddenly dependent on other people to do something-simple-that-I-could-do-in-5-minutes-if-I-knew-how? Do I need New And Better Technology? My thoughts, _Ryan Wilcox
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| chuckbo Posts: 42 Registered: 2003-04-09 |
Posted: Nov 01, 2004 12:52:29 pm
Jeff, I'll add one (maybe more than one) other observation on switching platforms. It reminds me of something my wife said about where she works. She's a teacher, and the schools are always talking about various changes to scheduling or curriculum or programs. She points out that there is no perfect system. If you make a change, you're exchanging the problems you know about for a set of problems that you don't know about, and you know that there will be loss of efficiency/revenue during the transition. That said, you know what your Helix frustrations are more than any consultant can tell you. If you reach a point where you want to seriously consider a swap, then you'll need to do your due diligence to learn about the limitations of the new model (and there really are difficulties with any path that you switch to - don't let anyone tell you otherwise). chuck |
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| Jeff Turner Posts: 4 Registered: 2004-10-31 |
Posted: Nov 02, 2004 9:58:08 pm
Helix has been great for us. We came upon it by accident when we hired a "programming consultant" who misrepresented his abilities. Six months into program development, we had nothing we could use. I consulted a friend who is a reputable programmer, who told me I had three choices after looking at what we had. He said this. "You can hire me, and I will have a program for you in six weeks (4D based). You can go look for someone else and take your chances. Finally you can learn Helix yourself and have all the control and headache." I went to the owner of our company and asked for the opportunity to learn the program. I reviewed the manual, sample Helix collections and what we had at the time from our "consultant". We were entering and printing our first legal document within three weeks. Helix is intuitive enough for a non programmer to create a relational database that can be built upon to do amazing things. I have learned a great deal about using data and automating documents that would have probably been out of my personal reach without Helix. We do whatever we want with our data for reporting. Recently we have had great success in producing reports for what we have identified as "key performance indicators" for our company which is heavily customer service oriented. Helix has allowed us to totally automate our legal and internal documents, which eliminated redundant work and dramatically increased productivity, information and cut cost. We have four 10-user Server licenses all running concurrently. TCP/IP is going to be huge for us as we now have a remote office. I tried using it with major damage to databases and abandon it after talking with Matt and Gill. We work around it now with Timbuktu. Sorry, I know this is not the right forum, but I love this program. Thanks for working so hard on it for those like me. - Edited by Jeff Turner on: Nov 02, 2004 10:01:42 pm
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| Robin Posts: 10 Registered: 2003-04-16 |
Posted: Oct 25, 2005 9:13:21 pm
Ive. ben doing some editing in OS X and classic and notice that the ability to paste strucure between collections is degraded. Namely, you can't make clipping files from the classic scrapbook. When we go to OS X native, we won't even have a scrapbook to use - how will we copy and paste structure?
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