[Dev] Unusual collections and items

[John Anderson]

Philippe Bossut wrote:

> Mimi Yin wrote:
>
>> Another thing to consider is that in the future, we will have the 
>> independent view selector back in the summary view area, so users 
>> will be able to switch between the table view, the calendar view and 
>> maybe some other crazier view altogether (timeline views, concept 
>> maps views, thumbnail views etc) independent of the application area 
>> that is selected.
>
>
> I like this! This will separate the "filter" from the "view" aspect, 
> both performed by the toolbar right now and the source of the issue we 
> are talking about.
> Having external contributors able to provide new innovative views of 
> data is also something we should encourage. I have a couple of wacky 
> ideas of my own I'd like to "parcelize" that way... (like the PCA view 
> :) )

+1. I've been in favor of this for a long time.

>
>> But, I agree it's weird right now that you're in the Calendar and the 
>> In collection and you overlay it with a user-defined collection, the 
>> view switches from Table to Calendar with no feedback as to why that 
>> has happened.
>
>
> So, what about not forcing the view switching for the moment (in 0.6)? 
> Anyway, as Sheila mentioned, this is a corner case for 0.6 since few 
> people will ever see the In and Out collections.

+1. This would also simplify the code considerably -- making our 
development job easier

>
>> An alternative we considered was making it impossible to overlay the 
>> In and Out and Trash collections with anything other than the In, Out 
>> and Trash collections. In other words, table view collections can 
>> only be overlayed with other table view collections. But this felt 
>> like yet another exception to throw into the sidebar checkbox 
>> behavior that would  make it both more complicated to implement and 
>> harder for the user to grok.
>
>
> I would stay away of creating UI exceptions and rules. We should have 
> a UI that's elegant and does not impose or constrain the user. We can 
> easily imagine cases where overlaying the Out box with a user defined 
> collection can be useful and make sense.

+1 Good design avoids special cases. It benefits users because it's 
easier to figure out, makes our job building Chandler easier, and 
extends in new situations. I think it's better to start with a simple 
design that avoids special cases then add special cases based on user 
experience.

>
> Cheers,
> - Philippe