Categories: Select & deselect children

Ideas for improvements and requests for new features in XnView MP

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m.Th.
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Categories: Select & deselect children

Post by m.Th. »

From my little experience (we have a suite of programs in which we have used from many years extensively the multi-select tree of keywords for searching/filtering) the best thing for the users is:

When one clicks on an item toggle the selection of the said item ONLY.

Provide as a right-click menu option the followings:

- Select all children
- Deselect all children
- Toggle all children

The above are quite powerful and usually can be done with the same piece of code (same iterator) - the only change needed is, of course, the actual action which is oCrtNode.Checked = True - or - oCrtNode.Checked = False - or - oCrtNode.Checked = not oCrtNode.Checked .

Something like this.

This is a distinctive feature from Lr which can be a very powerful one, mitigating the need of freezing the tree structure by saving in the file/sidecar the entire path of keywords - for example : Europe | France | Paris. With the feature above we can be much more flexible and faster.
m. Th.

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xnview
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Re: Categories: Select & deselect children

Post by xnview »

below 'new category'/'delete'/'rename'?
Pierre.
vertigo
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Re: Categories: Select & deselect children

Post by vertigo »

Just realized I missed the link to this in the other thread. I do like the sound of this. Never used software that worked this way, but it sounds like a great way of handling it.
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helmut
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Re: Categories: Select & deselect children

Post by helmut »

vertigo wrote:... Never used software that worked this way, but it sounds like a great way of handling it.
:)
xnview wrote:below 'new category'/'delete'/'rename'?
Right.

In total the context menu when selecting a category which has children should look like this:

-------------------------
New
-------------------------
Delete
Rename
-------------------------
Select all children
Toggle all children
Deselect all children
-------------------------

Notes:
- I've renamed "New category" to "New". (It should be clear to the user that he/she deals with categories).
- I've changed the order of the menu items Delete and Rename. Reason is that Windows often uses this order.
- I've moved "Deselect all children" to the bottom because this is the function that "deletes" the selection.

Does everyone agree?
vertigo
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Re: Categories: Select & deselect children

Post by vertigo »

I wouldn't call them "children." Normal users might not understand the parent/child context. Maybe Select/Toggle/Clear All Sub-Categories?

Agree with the rest, and good call on the order of Delete/Rename.
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helmut
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Re: Categories: Select & deselect children

Post by helmut »

vertigo wrote:I wouldn't call them "children." Normal users might not understand the parent/child context. Maybe Select/Toggle/Clear All Sub-Categories?
Right, that wording is much better. Except "Clear" - here I'd stick to "Deselect".
vertigo wrote:Agree with the rest, and good call on the order of Delete/Rename.
:)

(I still wonder whether a key combination should force selecting/deselecting including children could be found, e.g. Ctrl+Alt+Mouse click).
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Re: Categories: Select & deselect children

Post by vertigo »

I figured I'd throw 'Clear' in just to try it out. :)

As for key combinations, I don't see why not. There are many, many different possible combinations, especially for just the keys themselves, so it should be possible to do just about anything with them as long as the user sets them up (which, of course, means giving the user the option to do so). And if the user chooses to set a key/mouse combination to select/deselect all, then that's on them if they somehow manage to accidentally do it, but there's no reason to not give them that option.
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m.Th.
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Re: Categories: Select & deselect children

Post by m.Th. »

Agree with the menu. Perhaps better „Rename” first (usually we have Add - Edit - Delete = Birth - Life - Death):

Add
Rename
Delete

Deselect : +1

WRT to children / parent and sub-categories. Well,... both are known: In Windows' terminology we have both: „subfolders” and „parent folder”. However in Windows security (Active Directory) we clearly have „Include inheritable permissions from this object's parent” or „Replace all child permissions...”. Below is a standard Windows dialog:
!!-Children.JPG
!!-Children.JPG (43.15 KiB) Viewed 838 times
m. Th.

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vertigo
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Re: Categories: Select & deselect children

Post by vertigo »

Not saying the 'child' usage is unknown or unused, but basic users may not know it. Anybody messing with Active Directory settings is likely not a basic user. Just trying to avoid confusion. Think of it this way: your doctor may know lots of medical and scientific terms, as do many other people, but you may not, so do you want them explaining what's going on with you with those terms or in laymen terms?
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