Simplified Entry Dialogs

[dsblank]

csam had an interesting idea in the discourse: https://gramps.discourse.group/t/what-do-did-you-find-to-be-the-most-complicated-parts-of-gramps/9392/2?u=dsblank

I think this has been discussed many times - the number of mouse clicks needed to go to a specific piece of information. If the number of mouse clicks can be reduced, many users will be happy.

About a year ago I suggested one way to reduce the number of clicks by combining the citation window with the notes window. The idea is that for most citations there will only be one note.

The example above is made in Gimp, so there’s no code behind.

This example implements two things:

• field to enter a URL for the citation
• a text field for the first note attached to the citation

I tried a few variations of this mock up, but the major issue was having the same items (first note and URL attribute) be editable in two places (in the fields and in the note list/attribute list). I think that would be a major user experience error.

But I took the spirit of the idea and came up this prototype. It is a simplified dialog for entering new citations (and only if use-simplified-interface is True):

It has a button "Show all fields" that switches to the standard entry:

and clicking "Simplified view" toggles back.

What do you think?

[GeorgeWilmes]

I like the idea. It would save me a lot of clicks. A few comments:

Often, my first note for a citation is of type "Transcription" or "Translation". It would be nice if the Type of this new "first note" could be changed while entering the note, rather than having to edit it afterwards.

I currently store the URL in a note of type "Link". If it were a new field in the citation itself, I guess that would be fine, as long as it is visible (and clickable) later on.

I often have URLs for Sources as well, and store those in repository reference notes of type "Link". It would save clicks to have a URL field on the repository reference window (underneath Media Type and Call Number).

[dsblank]

Thanks for the feedback and further ideas!

Often, my first note for a citation is of type "Transcription" or "Translation". It would be nice if the Type of this new "first note" could be changed while entering the note, rather than having to edit it afterwards.

Good point. I'll see about adding "Note Type" to the simplified view as well.

I currently store the URL in a note of type "Link". If it were a new field in the citation itself, I guess that would be fine, as long as it is visible (and clickable) later on.

That would be the idea. We may have to make sure that is true, but should be easy.

I often have URLs for Sources as well, and store those in repository reference notes of type "Link". It would save clicks to have a URL field on the repository reference window (underneath Media Type and Call Number).

Yes, if the basic idea of "Simplified Entry Dialogs" is accepted, we could do a few more.

[emyoulation]

moved by request

Now at:
Single page data entry (and reports) via PDF fillable forms #2285
#2285

[dsblank]

@emyoulation can you start a new discussion post under Ideas on PDF forms? I would like one discussion thread per idea so that we can use the Github discussion links to connect to the actual implementation PRs.

[emyoulation]

can you start a new discussion post under Ideas on PDF forms?

Will do. But I was thinking this was the exact same target but a different way of attacking the "Simplified Entry". But the topic title is slightly misleading if this is strictly about Citations.

[dsblank]

Yes, these will be precise, surgical discussions hopefully leading to exact code changes.