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Re: Re: Merge dialog

From: Simon Large <simon.tortoisesvn_at_googlemail.com>
Date: 2007-10-21 00:11:51 CEST

On 20/10/2007, Alexander Klenin <klenin@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry for such a stubbornness on my part, I honestly feel my
> usability concerns are legitimate ones --
> but maybe I am wrong and worry about nothing.
> Anyway, just one last attempt from me, and I promise to shup up,
> at least until I have a chance to test a wizard mode ;-)
>
> On 10/19/07, Stefan Küng <tortoisesvn@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > But this IS settings and options for merge command.
> >
> > A setting is something you set once, then forget about it.
> > This is definitely not a setting: each merge is different.
>
> Yes, some settings stay the same for a long time
> and some are changed more often -- but which are which depends on
> concrete usage, and it is not optimal to force all users into the
> 'stupid first-novice' category who need to re-check everything every time
> in a pre-determined fixed order.

The 'stupid novice' category is to disable merging competely ;-)

But seriously, the point Stefan is making is that with the old dialog
all the settings were visible. With a tabbed view, you have to click
on the tabs to see what is there.

> I, for one, do not remember if I ever changed "Ignore ancestry" setting.
> As another example, "Ignore eols" is just as much a setting as it is
> in TortoiseMerge.
> Yet another example -- for me 'From URL' changes each time,
> but for developers working on branches, this URL never changes.

That won't be a problem - the URL will be remembered, as it is now, so
just click next.

> > > Most users will simply click on "Next" and NOT check
> > > settings any more after first two or three times using the wizard.
> > But they still *see* the page - if something would be completely
> > wrong, they might notice it even though they just click on "next".
> Yes, they might, or they might not -- attention to such details really get
> blurred after tenth time you click through the same pages.
> Imagine you have to uninstall/reinstall the same application ten times a day,
> each time changing one setting buried inside a 4-step wizard.
> Would you not wish that setting to be accessible directly?

Well, you have a point. We avoid having 'Are you sure?', 'No really,
are you sure you're sure?' dialogs because after a while people click
through without reading them. So in that sense, tabs are no worse than
the wizard.

But compared with the time required to show a log or get a URL using
repo browser, the time to click Next is completely insignificant.

> > > Sorry, but it that sense the wizard is even worse, since it makes
> > > harder to get back and
> > > check some setting if you start having doubts on the last tab.
> > One click on "Back" and you're there. That's hard?
>
> No, you have to click "Back" one to three times,
> and then click "Next" the same number of times to return to the last tab.

Novices have doubts ;-) If you're always doing the same type of
merge, you never want to change the first page, so at most it is 2
clicks. If you got the first page wrong, you would know immediately on
the second page.

> > > All I ask for is an option, you can totally hide tabs in wizard mode.
> > > I know the options are bad, but this one is really important to me ;-)
> >
> > Don't forget that in tab-mode, you would see both the revrange and the
> > treemerge pages - which one will get used? Don't say you want a
> > checkbox to choose between those two...
> If I understood correctly, the first tab will consist of exactly that checkbox?
> So TSVN might, for example,
> display both pages as separate tabs, but enable controls
> only on the one corresponding to the first page selection.

The first version of the wizard should be available tomorrow so maybe
we should continue this discussion after trying it.

Simon

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Received on Sun Oct 21 00:12:01 2007

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