Re: PATCH: Improve status bar in Edit Data window

On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 7:02 AM, J.F. Oster <jinfroster@mail.ru> wrote:
> Hello Dave,
>
> Thursday, January 2, 2014, 4:01:47 PM, Dave Page wrote:
>
>>> 1000 rows LIMIT
>>> 1000 rows LIMIT, FILTER
>>> 797 rows, FILTER
>>> Will that help distracted users?
>
> DP> I think adding a bright yellow warning exclamation would be a good
> DP> idea too. Something like:
>
> DP> /!\ Data filtered
> DP> or
> DP> /!\ Rows limited
>
> Trying to imagine,.. that is a bitmap? Would it appear in "rows" pane
> in the status bar or in a new pane (how would it relate to "rows" and
> "description" panes)?

A bitmap, similar (perhaps) to the attached. It could appear in the
rows panel (or at least, the text could - the image might need it's
own panel so you have something to draw on) - I haven't given it a
huge amount of thought, and without trying it out, it's hard to
visualise exactly what it would look like.

> I've done a quick screenshot-based search on how this looks in some
> popular DBMS-related tools:
>  Oracle SQL Developer
>  AllroundAutomations PL/SQL Developer
>  EMS SQL Manager
>  PostgreSQL Maestro
>  MS SQL Server Management Studio
>  Quest Software Toad for Oracle
>  Embarcadero DBArtisan
>  Sequel Pro
>  Navicat
>  SQLBuddy
> I haven't found any one (except PgAdmin) to have some column metadata
> shown in the column header when viewing/editing table data. Everyone
> shows nothing but the column name in the header!
> Also I recall my first experience with PgAdmin in 2006 - this
> distinction was noticed.
>
> So possibly, many UI designers of the products above came to similar
> conclusions:
>  1. Column header is too small and can't present much information without
>  distracting the user.
>  2. Further column metadata (even data type) is less significant
>  to most users and can be placed to some "background" location (status
>  bar) or even totally removed.
>
> May be it's not so bad to duplicate column name & datatype, as a first
> step to introduce new feature and hopefully get some user's feedback?
> That area in the status bar is unused anyway...

That kinda depends on the size of your window doesn't it? The problem
with the status bar is that it's detached from the actual object
you're looking at. You cannot see at a glance what it refers to so
easily - using the column header gives you a visual clue that doesn't
require you to check which cell is selected. It also allows you to see
everything at once (and in 10+ years of using this design, I've never
heard anyone complain about using the column headers in this way).

There have been heated discussions here in the past (admittedly a long
time ago) about not cluttering the status bars with too much
information - and I'm normally on the "more is better" side of the
argument, but I'm not convinced this time. Other opinions from the
peanut gallery would be useful :-)

Cheers, Dave.

--
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

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