Skip to main content
IMPLEMENTED

Context-Sensitive Windows

  • October 23, 2019
  • 5 replies
  • 13 views

Forum|alt.badge.img

The new multi-pane layout of Discovery Hub is great, but it has a bit of a problem in that the windows aren't context sensitive in some cases - what happens in one window happens in all windows. 

An example of this is creating relations between tables.  Doing this with the same database open in two panes makes this process much easier and faster!  Except that creating a relation cause the UI to snap to the relations node of the table where the relation has been created.  It does this for all panes and windows that contain this table, even though you'd want it to only happen in the "destination" pane and nowhere else.  Honestly, as a more advanced user I find the "snapping" functionality to be frustrating.  But if it has to happen, making it happen in all windows and panes makes the new layout much less useful for tasks like creating relations..  

Another example is opening tables in new windows.  If you have multiple panes open, and open tables in a new window, if you close any of the panes, all of the open windows close.  It would be very helpful to close only the windows that were opened from the pane that's being closed.  

5 replies

Forum|alt.badge.img+1

Agreed on all counts.  Having the tree jump/snap and pop-up windows disappearing when I close a tab has been frustrating me.


  • December 4, 2019

I agree it might not feel intuitive. There are two pieces of logic that influence what happens when creating relations via drag&drop in the GUI, and which might cause what you experience as "snapping". Both pieces of logic have existed for many years, probably since the beginning. One logic expands the relations node you have just added, but Discovery Hub expands nodes only in the tab that is currently selected, which is the drag&drop source tab. Discovery Hub expands nodes automatically when changed, but only in the tab that is currently selected (i.e. contains the node that actively selected). The second logic always adds the new relation to the table selected as drag&drop target, unless there already is a relation between the two tables in the drag&drop source table. In such case, the new relation will be added to the drag&drop source table, so that we can see all relations between two particular tables always in the same place. Which of the two pieces of logic do you mean as "snapping"?


Forum|alt.badge.img+1

Radek,

Thank you for your response.  The problem I've been running into with the new tabs occurs when creating lookups.

If I am working in two business unit tabs, and I drag a field from the right tab to the left in order to add a lookup, the trees in both tabs jump down to the new lookup value.  This forces users to use pop-up windows when adding lookups, or they must scroll back to their table that was in focus on the right tab.  The right tab (source for the lookup) should ideally stay where it was.  

I'm also having a strange issue in one install where re-ordering a field in a tree causes the tree to jump all the way to the bottom.  This only happens on one install, so I need to upgrade and see if that fixes the issue.


  • December 5, 2019

Hi David,

The problem of shifting the tree content down when something is added to the invisible part of the tree is related to how Windows handles tree views. We keep the position unchanged, but the tree view is longer that's why it appears shifted after adding a conditional lookup or relation to another table that comes before the source table. One idea that comes to my mind would be to try to compensate for this by subtracting the added space from the visible frame, which is a bit tricky, but in theory it might work. It is not something that is in any way standard nor easy, unfortunately. But it might probably solve the issue. For the time being there is not much we can do about it, though.

The other problem with jumping to the bottom, especially when reordering, has been fixed in version 19.9 and 19.11. We hope that part is history. :)

I am curious about this "snapping" problem with relations. Is it about expanding the newly added relations node or about adding the relation node to the source table instead of target?


JTreadwell
Community Manager
Forum|alt.badge.img+5
  • Community Manager
  • February 26, 2021

Thanks for your suggestions!

It seems this has been resolved in version 19.11+