[Design] IMPT- "dragging Items around"

[Dennis Lynch]

I have paid attention to OSAF & Chandler since the beginning, but I am
not totally up to date with all of the current design concepts and
idiosyncrasies, so please excuse me if this comment is totally
ignorant!!!

I am concerned that "dragging objects around" is creating copies of
objects, and then it gets complicated regarding multiple copies,
deletions etc etc.

SOLUTION (probably it's either way too late to do this, OR it's
already being done and I just don't understand.. which is more
likely...)- use "Labels" (GMail terminology) or "Tags" (del.icio.us
terminology).  In this approach, each "Item" which comes in to
Chandler is only created once, and as it "evolves", it just gets
additional Tags to indicate which collections it is part of (contacts,
email, calendar items, to-do's, "from-boss", etc).  Based on which
tags are attached to the item, determines which additional fields are
available and which are required to be NotNull.
 - Dragging an item to a Tag means either add that Tag to the item,
OR, delete Tag "A" and add Tag"B" (making the Item part of Collection
"B", and no longer part of Collection "A".)  In some cases, once a Tag
is added to an Item, then a pop-up is required to allow/require the
user to fill in additional fields, or at least confirm values if the
program has "guessed" at those values.
 - Deletion then means either deleting a Tag, OR totally deleting an
Item with all of its tags.
 - Deletion also means that sometimes you need to ask the user "do
you want to delete this item entirely (and showing all the details of
that item) or do you simply want to delete the Tag 'Important'?"
 - Sometimes the arrival of an "Item" (i.e. an email message) can
create additional Items (a Contact List Entry, or a ToDo Item) which
stand on their own, but which refer-back to the Source Item.

I hope this makes sense, and is useful in some way.

--
Dennis Lynch
dmlynch [at] alum.mit [dot] edu
dmlynch1 [at] gmail [dot] com
> Make email more useful by using Labels in your subject line:
IMPT- important message
INFO - general information
JOKE- self-explanatory
QRY- an unsolicited query/question
REPL- reply to your message
URGT- urgent message requiring immediate attention