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Bug 220219 - Usability issues with property dropdown values for complex properties
Summary: Usability issues with property dropdown values for complex properties
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: web
Classification: Unclassified
Component: CSS Visual Tools (show other bugs)
Version: 7.3
Hardware: PC Windows 7
: P2 normal (vote)
Assignee: Marek Fukala
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2012-10-16 19:21 UTC by lxlyons
Modified: 2012-10-31 02:57 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: DEFECT
Exception Reporter:

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Description lxlyons 2012-10-16 19:21:48 UTC 
The list of options in the dropdown for short-hand properties is confusing.  It seems like tossing every possible predfined value for each of the options isn't helpful.  See font and border as cases in point.
Comment 1 Marek Fukala 2012-10-16 19:37:16 UTC 
FYI right now there's a bug that some of the offered items are invalid as the property value - these definitively needs to be fixed. 

As for what is proposed in general it is not clear to me 

1) why offering possible values is a problem,
2) what is the key for defining what should be offered and what not.
Comment 2 lxlyons 2012-10-19 15:52:55 UTC 
For a shorthand property that accepts multiple values, the correct UI is not a dropdown with a union of available predefined options.  We should not use a dropdown at all for these properties.  

Ultimately, we should add custom editors if we wanted to really facilitate the DT, but that's a separate enhancement.  For this bug, we should remove the dropdown support in this case.
Comment 3 Marek Fukala 2012-10-23 12:25:40 UTC 
Ok, if you think it is so much confusing to the users, I'll remove it.
Comment 4 Marek Fukala 2012-10-30 14:33:51 UTC 
fixed in web-main#f16826ef4afc

btw, the single properties all have the dropdown even if there's no fixed value for them - the dropdown always contains <none> item which removes the property from the rule. 

As we now do not have the dropdown for some of the properties, it is inconsistent and confusing so I guess the <none> item should be removed completely.
Comment 5 Marek Fukala 2012-10-30 15:01:59 UTC 
changeset:   237684:bdac2927b5d9
summary:     removing the "..." button with plain custom editor for properties w/o a dropdown. Removing <none> item from all the properties.

now it looks much nicer...drawback of this change is that aggregated properties which may contain a color are rendered as plain. I'll fix this later as this is not trivial.
Comment 6 Marek Fukala 2012-10-30 15:05:39 UTC 
(In reply to comment #5)
drawback of this change is that aggregated properties
> which may contain a color are rendered as plain. I'll fix this later as this is
> not trivial.
I will better keep it as it is now as it won't render the color value with the icon if the value contains more than one item anyway.
Comment 7 Quality Engineering 2012-10-31 02:57:01 UTC 
Integrated into 'main-golden', will be available in build *201210310001* on http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/nightly/ (upload may still be in progress)
Changeset: http://hg.netbeans.org/main-golden/rev/f16826ef4afc
User: Marek Fukala <mfukala@netbeans.org>
Log: #220219 - Usability issues with property dropdown values for complex properties