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Add notes quickly from anywhere

Pliny (John Eremic)

July 02, 2009 15:03

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One thing I love about the Notes system is the ability to connect a note to any entity or entities.  To do so right now, I have a couple of options:

1. Nav to the detail page of a given entity (task, shot, custom etc); click on the "Notes" tab, add a note
2. Create new note from the universal "+New" menu and try to find my entity via autosuggest.

I'd love to see a quick link or button ("Add Note about this...") that allowed my users to quickly post notes without additional clicks or autosuggest hunting.

Examples:

• In a List View, include a "new note" button column
• In card or detail view, allow a "new note" button or link to be enabled

I guess in both cases this boils down to a new field type (of sorts).  In any case I think this would speed up things and encourage users to make use of the notes system--which I want them to do.

EDIT 7/7/09: Screen grabs added.

/attachments/token/iq3w3fni2sl12bp
/attachments/token/fo3a8nutz33q2fu

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7 comments

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  Don Parker July 02, 2009 19:34

  Hey Pliny, we've been thinking about this too.  I think the same type of tool would be useful for adding tasks quickly to one more more entities.  Here's a set of screens I've been working on:

  

  Here we have selected a group of assets, then in the context menu (right click or click the gear menu above), you see options to add tasks or notes to selected.  Then up comes a dialog:

  

  Which is pre-populated with the links to all the entities you selected.  In the case of tasks, a separate task would be created for each selected asset.  All tasks would contain the info entered here in this form.  In the case of notes, we could provide an option to either make one note that links to all selected entities (nice if you want to have a big open conversation about one topic are are ok with a single status) or make separate notes for each selected entity (nice is each note will have it's own workflow, updates, status changes, etc.).

   

  Do you think this would work?

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  Pliny (John Eremic) July 03, 2009 11:28

  I like it.  Two thoughts:

  1. How hard would it be to include "note" and "task" icon buttons--say, between the gear button and the "Group" dropdown?

  2. How would you handle adding notes and tasks when already inside a detail for for the entity in question?

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  Don Parker July 07, 2009 10:30

  <<
  1. How hard would it be to include "note" and "task" icon buttons--say, between the gear button and the "Group" dropdown?
  >>

  Would those buttons then only activate when there is a selection and on click open up the dialog I posted above?  That shouldn't be difficult.  We designed the toolbar to enable us to add more buttons and controls as needed (and eventually allow you to customize it yourself).  You're thinking that an exposed button would be faster?  I guess the icon woudl be a little + and the note/task icon.  That would rock.

   

  <<
  2. How would you handle adding notes and tasks when already inside a detail for for the entity in question?
  >>

  
  Well, you can do that now by clicking the + button on a Notes tab.  Is that not working?  Too slow?  Maybe the detail pages could have a gear menu with actions to perform on that one entity?  Hmm, or maybe our detail pages should have a toolbar as well to expose key actions as buttons.  Thoughts?

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  Pliny (John Eremic) July 07, 2009 12:00

  Mostly I am concerned with keeping it stupid & simple; and adding notes with as few clicks as possible.  So, 1 click better than 2.  (Unless Amazon patented that too and will sue you.)

  Buttons: yes, greyed out until a selection was made would be logical  (And a customizable toolbar would be great, although frankly not near the top of my wish list right now.)

  Detail view: Notes tab works, but fewer clicks = better.  I had originally envisioned some type of "add new note" button in the top widget.  A better idea perhaps: a widget allowing for instant inline posting--similar to "add new comment" on a blog or "new post" field at the top of your Twitter page.  (I can mock something up later today.)

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  Pliny (John Eremic) July 07, 2009 15:06

  Don, remember when we talked about the [current] pain of creating a lot of views from scratch?  This is another reason I'd rather not be forced to use the "Notes tab" in the detail view.  Since I am dealing heavily with custom entities, this means creating a lot of views from Scratch.  See screen grab I just added to the original message in this thread.

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  Pliny (John Eremic) July 07, 2009 15:26

  Re: my second-to-last comment (5:00 am): never mind mocking something up, you guys have already done it!  See the second screen grab I am attaching to this thread.

  It's the "Notes" card layout accessible under the Card View.

  So, all I'd ask for here is the option to add this "Notes" and "[+] Add Note" inline post widget to the *detail* view of an entity (including custom entities).

  Make sense? What do you think?

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  Don Parker July 07, 2009 19:56

  Yep, buttons/links on detail pages make sense.  I put that in an internal ticket over her for scheduling (our ticket 8119), which is linked to the other ticket about adding the action menu/buttons on grid pages (our ticket 4537).