[Design] Multiple window support

[Mimi Yin]

The ability to pop up a detail view in a separate window would indeed  
open up a whole new range of usage scenarios and workflows for us in  
Chandler, primarily having to do with content creation and content  
editing workflows.

However, I agree with Jeffrey that it will require a fair amount of  
both design work and feature development to get right.

Assumption: Popping up an independent detail view is most useful if  
your composing and editing in Chandler (text, images, documents etc).

This means:
+ support for HTML editing;
+ dragging and dropping images and files in-line in the Notes field
+ print
+ getting the toolbar right for the independent window

Beyond that, there are other things we might want to do to help users  
manage their windows:
+ e.g. ability to 'tie' multiple windows together into clumps of windows
+ docking windows onto the main Chandler window as tabs, etc

In the Beta timeframe, our goal is to get people to enter and manage  
atomic units of data into Chandler.
+ Data that doesn't require a lot of composing / editing.
+ Data that you might jot down in an outliner or a spreadsheet as  
opposed to write out in paragraph form in

Examples:
+ Keeping track of meeting agendas
+ Packing lists
+ Discrete tasks

In sum, Beta will support manage information management workflows,  
not content creation/editing workflows.

SETTING USER EXPECTATIONS
 From this workflow perspective, there is a relatively clean line  
between information management and content creation. It is something  
we can easily communicate to users with the design (e.g. the detail  
view is way too small to support meaningful content creation) such  
that they don't expect more from the design than we can realistically  
support.

I believe what Jeffrey is trying to say is that we don't want to  
cross that line and venture into content creation workflows only to  
discover that we don't have the resources to support them fully,  
thereby setting users up only to be disappointed.

Mimi

On Jul 12, 2006, at 9:02 AM, John Anderson wrote:

> Assuming we have the UI already working, I think moving it to a new  
> window is probably not too hard. I'm basing my opinion on my  
> experience moving the block viewer and repository viewer (in the  
> test menu) to their own windows.
>
> Jeffrey Harris wrote:
>> Starting my slow progress through old threads...
>>
>>
>>> On Jun 12, 2006, at 7:27 AM, John Anderson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> It should be pretty easy to try out -- and see what problems might
>>>> arise.
>>>>
>> I believe it's not hard to experiment with multiple windows, but
>> presumably moving from proof of concept to polished-and-tested is an
>> order of magnitude more difficult.  I'm reluctant to move far down  
>> that
>> path given our drive to cut down on features unless the PPD team  
>> feels
>> multiple windows will add a *lot* to the user experience.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Jeffrey
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>>
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