Nicklas Norling wrote:
> Having had the opportunity to work with one of the Microsoft Outlook
> UI designers, I've
> learned that it's often a good idea to decide upon a metaphor. As an
> example use the dialog
> metaphor for displaying messages to a user.
> I've tried to analys how I use and perceive the overlays when I use
> TSVN and I've come to
> the conclusion that basically the overlays are a visual diff between
> what's in the repo (when
> I last updated) and in my WC. I can see when I've added a file to my
> project but not to
> svn, I can see when files have been added to svn but not yet committed
> to the repo. I can
> see deleted folders (but not files) etc. Is this how others see it
> also? If so, could it be used
> for figuring out how (or even if) to do locking overlays or remove/add
> other overlays?
> Based on my experience it's possible it could provide at least a good
> guide. And if nothing
> else it could provide consistency in the UI towards the end user.
>
> Suppose we assume that we want to visually diff between the repo and
> the WC by using
> overlay icons, what would that hint me about locking overlay? Can a
> lock be a difference
> between the repo and my WC? That's not the way I think I would see it.
> If I lock a file it's then also locked in the repo; no diff there.
> If someone else has locked a file in the repo I can't see that due to
> the way it's
> implemented now, otherwise maybe it could be viewed as a diff.
> If svn:needs-lock is set, it's both in my WC and the repo, no diff.
>
> Following the metaphore we should not implement overlays for locking.
> Maybe this
> would be a good starting point? Then, if during usage we find users
> being very annoyed
> with missing to lock files with svn:needs-lock we could alter the
> metaphore to also include
> displaying status of files/folders (at least for some use-cases) and
> take it from there.
>
> What do you think?
> /Nicke
>
>
I like the thoughtful approach to this tenuous topic but my mind keeps
coming back to the practical side of conveying the information I would
want to see.
Once we update (synchronize) our WC with the Head, then it's up to
ourselves to be aware that from now on that there may be read-only files
i.e. files locked by another user present in our WC(s).
At the same time, we need to be aware of the locks we hold so they can
be released ASAP.
The degree of effort involved in discovering this and how best TSVN can
help is where my focus is right now. The scenario I painted in an
earlier post about opening the development IDE which in turn re-opens a
multitude of files from scattered directories is an everyday occurrence.
There is no ready opportunity to be made aware of change of locking
status deep in a previsioned directory structure.
Thanks in particular to Will Dean we now have a usable recursive
modified status and I'm thinking we will need something similarly global
(but not necessarily the same) to indicate that we currently hold locks
and also when our updated WC contains read-only files.
I'm thinking maybe a tray icon, fed from the cache might suffice.
Clicking on the tray icon might then lead to an explorer like view of
the files /directories containing the locked files. This would need to
be capable of handling multiple WC/repositories too.
Peter
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@tortoisesvn.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@tortoisesvn.tigris.org
Received on Thu Apr 14 17:03:17 2005