[nag] Nag Stage 6

rbarnett@neuromics.com rbarnett@neuromics.com
Mon, 21 May 2001 11:54:30 -0500


Quoting Jon Parise <jon@csh.rit.edu>:

> On Mon, May 21, 2001 at 10:48:21AM -0500, rbarnett@neuromics.com
> wrote:
> 
> > I want to be able to record the order in which I plan to
> > complete the tasks and have a view that presents the tasks in
> > that order. Of course, due to changing conditions or random
> > whim, I may choose to alter that order, so I'd like a way to
> > record that sort of change as well.
> 
> That would probably be fairly difficult to do with the current
> schema, but I think it would be possible.  What kind of UI would
> you suggest?

I didn't expect that the schema itself would present much of a challenge.  Seems
to me that another column to record the position of a task would be sufficient.
 The tricky part is maintaining that value though.  Inserting a task into a
particular position could require renumbering all of the tasks after that
position and that could lead to unacceptable performance.  Maybe something
similar to the old BASIC trick of numbering lines by incrementing by 10 or 100
would minimize that.

As for the user interface, it seems to me that the ideal would be a drag and
drop interface along the lines of Netscape's bookmark management window. 
However, I dont know how you'd implement that in a lightweight web-based
application.

Maybe exposing the position numbers to the user and allowing them to change the
numbers would be an acceptable alternative though that's probably too geeky for
many people. 

Another possibility would be something similar to the IMP folder view where each
task has a checkbox and there's a dropdown that lets you change things.  In this
case, you could choose to move the selected task(s) up one, down one, up to top,
down to bottom.  Moving the task at position 43 to position 6 could be difficult
with this interface though.

Just some thoughts.  Thanks for considering them.

Rodney