What we're working on - Updating often!

[mrdna]

Hello all !!!

Seems really great... I see that a lot of improvements have been done... and... I find these totally great... except that I have a question about the father-child inheritance story...

Last time I checked it was possible to group the table by color.
I was thinking of using this in order to separate some high-level categories (work, private, hobby)
All the work related tables being in one color etc... you got the picture...

Let's imagine i categorise all my letters by sender... I have some "work" senders and some "private" senders....I now can group these in two different colors.... but with the inheritance thing if I pout all the senders in a table "letter" I loose the color split... don't we loose some functionality ?

Wouldn't it be a good idea to do the same as with the auto-tagging... default behaviour as you describe.... possibility to overrule the child tables color (aka <> than parent color)....

Any comments are welcome...

Jf

In my understanding this is much like color grouping except with a 'master tabble'. basically you can still seperate "work" and "private" into distincts color groups however applying them to a file means that you'll also be adding the parent tabble. IE; "Joe Smith", a blue "work" tabble when applied will add not only a blue "Joe Smith" tabble, but also a blue "work" parent tabble. If you have a 'document type' set of tabbles, say red ones for "letter", "fax", "email" and the like then adding "letter" will also add the parent "document type" tabble. In essence you will also add a tabble for every color group you apply to your file.

In my case that means an average of 4 useless tabbles per file in my main DB. This is the basis of my, uh... unsureness about the way this feature is being implimented. Were I to attempt to use it I would have to do a big rethink on how I categorize my files and I'd have to decide whether re-doing my primary DB (3k files and nearly 1k tabbles) is worth the effort or if I simply stop at the 1.3.x version. That's not hyperbole either as ver 1.4 will do away with the hide/unhide abilities which, in one sense I would really like to see. The problem is that even with a couple hundred tabbles visible a few program functions are seriously impacted. With nearly 1000 tabbles unhidden (and me not using parent-child tabbling) this would make the program fairly un-usable.

Quite honestly, for me, the way nesting tabbles is being implimented is causing me some great consternation.

[Andrea]

Gentlemen (and ladies too if there is any out there listening): some explanation and some news.

There are much bigger changes going on ([b]excited - excited - excited). Please consider that all of this is on-going work and your opinion on this is very precious as usual. This could really be the biggest release we did so far in terms of GUI and functionalities.

This MASSIVE GUI re-re-redesign is mainly due to the fact that we did (finally!) realize that the general public will not accept a desktop app that behaves too differently from what they're used to, and what they're used to is typicall Windows Explorer and Outlook. In this last redesign we're making an effort to make Tabbles behave as much as possible like the Explorer of Windows 7 (Explorer = My Computer, not Internet Explorer!)


Have a look at the pics here:

starting situation

1ret.png (87.48 KiB) Viewed 791 times

The new starting point will be the "desktop", where you will see on the left a list or a tree (depending on how you arranged them... you could have a loooong list too) and on the right, in the main body, you'll see something where double clicking on tabbles feels like double-clicking on a folder...but still the tabbles are not folders.

Please consider that the search field in the tree was added by me with Paint .net as well as the "open all" button (meant to be a function to open/close all the whole tabble tree).

Important, you can already (which doesn't mean you have to!):
- nest tabbles in more levels (like folders)
- put the same tabble into serveral other tabbles (unlike folders or like Win 7 libraries if you prefer...)

What I mean is that in the pics I've seen I did nest tabbles per color, but since you can place the same tabble in as many tabbles as you want, this could obviously not always be true.
Once again: we're giving you further chances to organize your tabbles more freely and naturally, we believe this is a massive boost in overall usability.

..............................

Combining from the left tree

2ret.png (95.46 KiB) Viewed 791 times

Ok, here is this amazing improvement that fixes an initial design issue (probably it's so amazing because it was my idea...or more probably since it was my idea I'm convinced that it's so amazing... anyway ):

When you start combining something with the left tree, the non-combinable tabbles (i.e.: the tabbles that if combined would give an empty list) will grey out in the tree. This way you can dynamically see not only how to continue your search, but also what you don't have.
In the pic you see that I started from "business cards": then below you see that under people only "Andrea" and "Maurizio" are on, and this implies that there are no business cards for Irma (she doesn't even have a tabble at all!)... do you copy me?

Also consider that:
1) the rendering of the tree still has to be refined: in the example of the picture the tabble that contains "Maurizio" and "Andrea" should have not been greyed-out...
2) you can use the left tree or the main body autonomously or use a little bit of each - Maurizio believes that the usual pattern is to start on the left panel and go on in the main body of the window. Keep in mind that this main body of the file panel is not like the one you currently have as it includes the formerly known "combinable tabbles".
3)Colors are one things, nested tabbles another: at least for now we'll leave it so that the color is independent from the tabble's parents
4)mrdna: for your 1000+ tabbles (let's say that 90% of them are hidden), the easiest solution for you would be to create tabble called "hidden tabbles" and throw all of them inside there. When you browse you can keep this big tabble-container closed and start from some other tabble (equivalent to starting on the main window and then refining using the "combineable tabbles"). Then you could go down in the "hidden tabbles" and found the rest of your combinable tabbles or just use the tabbles in the main body (we will have a very compact mode soon)

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If this wasn't exciting enough, we have some more news:

1) maybe (no promises, but I have a good gut feeling) we'll soon have a real OR . In reality with the current beta you can achieve the same result by putting 2 tabbles inside an empry 3rd tabble (if you don't get this don't worry, it's also conceptually quite complicated....)

2) the main window is gonna become "hidden" for a while, where hidden means that when you click on the Tabbles icon in the tray, the file window will appear. To show the main window you'll need to click a menu entry. Then we'll probably remove and (drums rolling...) reincarnate it into something else (please allow me some secrecy on this public forum, but you're welcome to pm me if you're curious)

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== Considerations and philosphy ==

We got to a point where we have some 10-20 (30?) people looking at what we're doing on a weekly base and commenting/contributing actively and this absolutely fantastic for us (I don't think I can stress this enough).
But please keep this in mind: our goal is to make 10-20-30 milion people come to our site/forum and follow what we're doing. In order to do this, we need to constantly have our hands on the steering wheel, fix what needs to be fixed, cut dry branches etc. and while doing this I'm mathematically sure that some of the stuff we do will be received negatively by some of you...but that's part of the game. There is a subtle feeling called "resistance to change" which is driving peoples' emotion and this is exactly what facebook and twitter are ignoring while they keep growing at this crazy pace.

Therefore I'm here to ask you something, not easy but it's worth the try: whenever we propose any new feature or modify something existing, please ask yourself "how would I react to this if I had never seen Tabbles?" or "how would my neighbour/cousin/daughter/dog who has never seen Tabbles react to this?" rather than "how would this impact my workflow with Tabbles?".

The reason why we're still in "stealth mode" (even after I read this article) is that we still felt our GUI needed to be reworked in order to get accepted by the crowed. Based on feedback of different types, we believe that this path (that is, making the GUI behave as close as possible to Explorer/Outlook) is the right one for a desktop app, therefore we're following it. I hope you'll be with us when there will be many more people on this forum and we can all stand proud as the people who were there in early days. Ok, I need to sweep my tears now

That was quite a post, was it?

P.S.: beta coming out this week

[mrdna]

Appreciate the update Andrea. Some very nice updates in the pipe, as it were.

My apologies if I sound overly critical at times, however it's not a result of a resistance to change. As a proto-typical "early adopter" I see change as a good thing, most especially in software and specifically in Tabbles. Admittedly though I do tend to think relative to my primary DB. That said, I do also get some feedback from my family folks using the program so I do make an effort to see things with "new eyes".

4)mrdna: for your 1000+ tabbles (let's say that 90% of them are hidden), the easiest solution for you would be to create tabble called "hidden tabbles" and throw all of them inside there. When you browse you can keep this big tabble-container closed and start from some other tabble (equivalent to starting on the main window and then refining using the "combineable tabbles"). Then you could go down in the "hidden tabbles" and found the rest of your combinable tabbles or just use the tabbles in the main body (we will have a very compact mode soon)

With all due respect, Andrea, this is a workaround and not a solution. One of the reasons I've been pushing pretty hard about the "too-many-tabbles" problem is because my Dad also began experiencing this same issue a few weeks back and he too is resistant to having to hide tabbles. In talking to my parents and wife the idea of hiding tabbles doesn't even cross their radar (make sense enough to consider as a need). So removing the ability is a non-issue overall, except for my Dad having the slowdown/hang issue. (He's cataloging their medical records)

For myself, in general, if the slowdown/hang issue is taken care of then removing the hide feature is great. It does, however, kill my original idea of profiles which relied on a single DB with the profiles hiding and unhiding sets of tabbles. Think of having your bills, pictures, letters, etc all in one DB and a profile for each. For a business, profiles would allow different machines (in different business divisions perhaps) to run different profiles on specific machines depending on accesses needed. (when network sharing is implimented or when carrying the DB between machines) Moot point now, though...

Hopefully the rework of the main window you're talking about will improve things.

1) maybe (no promises, but I have a good gut feeling) we'll soon have a real OR . In reality with the current beta you can achieve the same result by putting 2 tabbles inside an empry 3rd tabble (if you don't get this don't worry, it's also conceptually quite complicated....)

One word: Woot!

Important, you can already (which doesn't mean you have to!):
- nest tabbles in more levels (like folders)
- put the same tabble into serveral other tabbles (unlike folders or like Win 7 libraries if you prefer...)
-----------8<---------------
3)Colors are one things, nested tabbles another: at least for now we'll leave it so that the color is independent from the tabble's parents

This deserves another woot as this is different than what you'de outlined in your Dec 30th post and more in line with what I'd envisioned nested tabbles to be. Keeping color groups as a separate entity from the nesting functions is the key here imho. Giving the user the choice whether the parent tabble is inherited or not may be something for you and Maurizio to consider.

I particularly like the search box in the tree panel. Historically the search boxes, whether in the main window or in a file window, have been lightning fast and any application of them will get a thumbs up from me!

Anyways, the mock-ups look pretty cool, guys. I've been chomping at the bit wanting to get my hands on a beta (or alpha for that matter! ) Nice work as always!

[mkayi]

I gotta say that I started my search for a tag based document management system with the thought in mind that I wanted to get as far away as possible from this:
"and what they're used to is typicall Windows Explorer and Outlook".

Mainly because I loathed the hierarchical file system and was looking for an abstraction level of whatever happened directly on my HD.
I realize the main functionality of tabbles will stay the same. But I can't help feeling underwhelmed by this move. Will there be an option for a classical GUI?

[Andrea]

hello there!

Appreciate the update Andrea. Some very nice updates in the pipe, as it were.

My apologies if I sound overly critical at times, however it's not a result of a resistance to change. As a proto-typical "early adopter" I see change as a good thing, most especially in software and specifically in Tabbles. Admittedly though I do tend to think relative to my primary DB. That said, I do also get some feedback from my family folks using the program so I do make an effort to see things with "new eyes".

4)mrdna: for your 1000+ tabbles (let's say that 90% of them are hidden), the easiest solution for you would be to create tabble called "hidden tabbles" and throw all of them inside there. When you browse you can keep this big tabble-container closed and start from some other tabble (equivalent to starting on the main window and then refining using the "combineable tabbles"). Then you could go down in the "hidden tabbles" and found the rest of your combinable tabbles or just use the tabbles in the main body (we will have a very compact mode soon)

With all due respect, Andrea, this is a workaround and not a solution. One of the reasons I've been pushing pretty hard about the "too-many-tabbles" problem is because my Dad also began experiencing this same issue a few weeks back and he too is resistant to having to hide tabbles. In talking to my parents and wife the idea of hiding tabbles doesn't even cross their radar (make sense enough to consider as a need). So removing the ability is a non-issue overall, except for my Dad having the slowdown/hang issue. (He's cataloging their medical records)

For myself, in general, if the slowdown/hang issue is taken care of then removing the hide feature is great. It does, however, kill my original idea of profiles which relied on a single DB with the profiles hiding and unhiding sets of tabbles. Think of having your bills, pictures, letters, etc all in one DB and a profile for each. For a business, profiles would allow different machines (in different business divisions perhaps) to run different profiles on specific machines depending on accesses needed. (when network sharing is implimented or when carrying the DB between machines) Moot point now, though...

Hopefully the rework of the main window you're talking about will improve things.

Thanks a lot for this explanation: I previously totally missed the point of your "profiles based on hiding/unhiding" and it sounds indeed interesting. Let me be very honest with you: we know that this slowdown shouldn't be there and of course we'll do our best to drastically improve the situation... the point is that so far we've been working on making the GUI accessible to the most, as soon as we accomplish this (and we're probably there this time) we can move onto some optimization (including this one).


Anyway, about your hide/unhide with profiles: I guess that our new tabbles-nesting feature will do the trick better than hiding (I understand that this is hard to imagine...but beta is around the corner again)
What we maybe need to work a bit on is smarter (and more dynamical) mechanism to show the relevant tabbles ones you started the search.

This deserves another woot as this is different than what you'de outlined in your Dec 30th post and more in line with what I'd envisioned nested tabbles to be. Keeping color groups as a separate entity from the nesting functions is the key here imho. Giving the user the choice whether the parent tabble is inherited or not may be something for you and Maurizio to consider.

Yes, we indeed shifted our field-of-view a bit: this came naturally while using the software. Also the tree thing: during the new year's eve days I met a friend's friend who mentioned that "a tree is something user know and expect" and Maurizio then said that "he had a tree in the back of his head for a while..." it's really like connecting the dots at this stage, this is why we're so positive about this release.

To mkayi: "anyone who has less than 50 posts doesn't have the right to speak in this place...unless you become Toruk Macto..." (Yes I know, I should get over Avatar 3D...) (mkayi -> just kidding!!! )

No, seriously, I get your point, but I trust you won't be disappointed by this GUI redesign... it is indeed way less traumatic than what I'm depicting it. Plus, the current main window will soon be reborn in his own ashes (PM me!!!).

What I'm also saying is that historically we introduced MANY big modifications in the software (just look at the old screenshots/videos) and most of the times people wowed at them - in that one case that people were puking at our release (like in this one ) we did steer back as fast as we could...and this will happen again if needed.

Guys, suggestions are still very welcome, but I realize that without your hands on the software you can hardly get the picture and judge... therefore I suggest we all wait a bit and have a nice chat over the next beta, ok?

Thanks!

A.

[Jfw]

I nearly can't wait... I ahve been scanning my paper docs in order to get everything in softcopy and to classify with tabbles... I will thus also test the auto-table feature

Br,
Jf

[mrdna]

Guys, suggestions are still very welcome, but I realize that without your hands on the software you can hardly get the picture and judge... therefore I suggest we all wait a bit and have a nice chat over the next beta, ok?

I can assure you, Andrea, we've been wanting to do exactly that for a bit now...

[Andrea]

I can assure you, Andrea, we've been wanting to do exactly that for a bit now...

hehe! My dear fellows, the beta is really close now. It might be the biggest release we did so far... plus, Maurizio did some fine tuning and now Tabbles is visibly faster... after this beta there will still be quite some work to do, but you won't be disappointed

[mrdna]

I can assure you, Andrea, we've been wanting to do exactly that for a bit now...

hehe! My dear fellows, the beta is really close now. It might be the biggest release we did so far... plus, Maurizio did some fine tuning and now Tabbles is visibly faster... after this beta there will still be quite some work to do, but you won't be disappointed

Just giving you guys a hard time. It does sound like a pretty good sized update.

[mkayi]

Yes I know, I should get over Avatar 3D...

Only Avatar II 3D could make me get over Avatar 3D, hehehe