[rkward-devel] Import preview? (CSV)

[d_jan]

Hi Thomas,

I had a look at the new function/plugin as well as at the different
preview possibilities.

> The "usual" placement would be at the bottom of the dialog
Yes, this would be my preferred option usability-wise too.

Also, the current implementation is not bad for previewing the import
(or any value generation), since it shows the data where it will appear
and seen later, anyway (this is, in a dataframe view tab). The main
problem is currently though, that the window of the preview plugin hides
after each click behind the main window. If it would stay on top, the
solution would be actually o.k.

>   - Our data preview may be a bit taller than usual due to the
>     "header" (Name, Label, Type, ...). That may need adjustments in
>     dialog layouts, or the header could be squeezed for previews,
>     initially.

I think that sqeezing the header makes most sense. The main problem this
solves imho is choosing the right parameters/presets for seperating the
data in rows and columns.


One general thing:
If we need to make some more space we could use dropdown-selects instead
of the radio-button-lists (e.g. in the import dialog, the choices
Period, Comma, Other are in such a radio-button-list; the choices for
"test form" in the t-test plugin are in a select dropdown). This would
also ease making the connection to the "specify characters" fields and
make it look more tidy. So usually, I prefer showing everything, but in
this case the dropdown selects would imho improve usability.

> Is there an
> intuitive way, the two could "share" the bottom area of the dialog?

Ah, funny, I was just thinking, that using a *button* to toggle the code
area is somewhat not optimal. Along the lines: What if code as well as
preview go into some accordion-like widget, similar to the optionset
one? In the case of code, this would make sense for all plugins.

Like this:

Preview__________________↓__
Code_____________________↓__

If clicked they expand and show their content. If that is technically
not feasible, I thought about showing the preview on the right or left
of the dialog (See RStudio).


Hope that helps. If anything seems ambigous for you, point this out and
I'll ad a mockup to the wiki (or whatever else to make communicate it
clearly)

Kind Regards,
 Jan





Am 16.12.2015 um 21:31 schrieb Thomas Friedrichsmeier:
> Hi!
> 
> On Sun, 6 Dec 2015 15:00:09 +0100
> jan <d_jan at ymail.com> wrote:
>> A while ago we improved the import dialog for CSV. Though it had
>> become much better, I suppose that a preview could really help
>> beginners and advanced users alike
> 
> [snip]
> 
> For what it's worth, a very first take on the problem can be seen in
> branch work/generalized_preview . Activate the "Plugins under
> development" (Settings->Manage R packages and Plugins->Manage RKWard
> Plugins), start up Analysis->Preview test.
> 
> Obviously, neither the example is useful, nor is it a good idea
> usability wise, so far. The central question I'd like to hear
> feedback/brainstorming on is: Where should the preview window go?
> 
> - Right now it is "attached" in the main window. That does not seem any
>   good, it's just the choice that did not need any extra code, so far.
> - Another possiblity would be a "detached" / floating window
>   (including menubar, etc.), as we use for plots / plot previews.
> - The "usual" placement would be at the bottom of the dialog, I think.
>   But:
>   - Our data preview may be a bit taller than usual due to the
>     "header" (Name, Label, Type, ...). That may need adjustments in
>     dialog layouts, or the header could be squeezed for previews,
>     initially.
>   - The bottom area of dialogs is already occupied by the "Code"
>     preview. Arguably, it seems unlikely that a user would
>     desperately want to see both at the same time. Is there an
>     intuitive way, the two could "share" the bottom area of the dialog?
> - Keep in mind that we are going to support several different types of
>   previews:
>   1. Plot previews (as already established)
>   2. Data previews (as in the example)
>   3. File previews (HTML files and / or text files)
>   4. Possibly we might also want to offer a kind of "minimal" preview,
>     which would simply display a few numbers inside the plugin dialog
>     (example use case: power analysis plugin).
>   4) May be a different beast, but for 1-3), it may or may not be a
>   good idea to offer a consistent placement.
> 
> --
> 
> As a side-note, one "collateral feature" in work/generalized_preview is
> that you can now view a data.frame inside package:datasets (or any other
> environment) in an editor window (read-only).
> 
> Regards
> Thomas
>