Thread: improvement suggestions
Hi PgAdmin team,
I’ve been a faithful user of your product on os x for many years now. I’ve tried many other clients but in the end they all lack some aspect of my workflow that I get out of pgadmin. There have been a few things that have long bothered me that I’d like to suggest to improve significantly the usability.
1. Native text editing.On a mac, the following aren’t supported
a) jumping words via option+left/right
b) jumping to EOL or BOL with cmd-left/right
c) jumping to BOD / EOD with cmd-up/down
d) home/end are mapped to EOL/BOL instead of EOD/BOD (although I quite dislike that about mac apps, so good for me)
2. In many text fields (editing server connection properties, editing the definition of a view), backspace is mapped to some kind of DROP/DELETE or something other than editing text which is dangerous and highly confusing. Really really bad when you’re editing the name of a table and then its asking you if you want to drop it.
3. Resizing windows doesn’t keep toolbars/subwindows with minimum size. You can end up in a case where the toolbar at the top that was visible is now 100% squished or otherwise mutated when you shrink the window size. It should reflow better.
These are otherwise violations of my expected behavior of a mac app. Beyond that, I have a few other requests
4. Columns do not expand size to fit. I often am querying json, where I end up with one column that allows for 10 characters of visibility, and then about 700px of nothing remaining in the window.
5. For the json data type, a better data viewing experience would be great. One suggestion would be to leave it rendered as text like it is, but when you double click on a cell a window pops up that decomposes it into a pretty printed tree.
6. Be able to cmd-/ a highlighted line to (un)comment it with a --
7. When I open a SQL console while an object/function/etc is selected, the text inside is how to create it. That’s (occasionally) helpful. However, if I close it without modifying it, I shouldn’t be asked if I’m sure I don’t want to save it first when I haven’t edited anything inside yet.
I hope this is well received. Thank you!
Aaron
I should also add redo convention on the mac is shift-cmd-Z instead of pgadmin's cmd-Y.
Best,
Aaron
On May 6, 2014, at 6:45 PM, Aaron Zinman <aaron@empiric.al> wrote:
Hi PgAdmin team,I’ve been a faithful user of your product on os x for many years now. I’ve tried many other clients but in the end they all lack some aspect of my workflow that I get out of pgadmin. There have been a few things that have long bothered me that I’d like to suggest to improve significantly the usability.1. Native text editing.On a mac, the following aren’t supporteda) jumping words via option+left/rightb) jumping to EOL or BOL with cmd-left/rightc) jumping to BOD / EOD with cmd-up/downd) home/end are mapped to EOL/BOL instead of EOD/BOD (although I quite dislike that about mac apps, so good for me)2. In many text fields (editing server connection properties, editing the definition of a view), backspace is mapped to some kind of DROP/DELETE or something other than editing text which is dangerous and highly confusing. Really really bad when you’re editing the name of a table and then its asking you if you want to drop it.3. Resizing windows doesn’t keep toolbars/subwindows with minimum size. You can end up in a case where the toolbar at the top that was visible is now 100% squished or otherwise mutated when you shrink the window size. It should reflow better.These are otherwise violations of my expected behavior of a mac app. Beyond that, I have a few other requests4. Columns do not expand size to fit. I often am querying json, where I end up with one column that allows for 10 characters of visibility, and then about 700px of nothing remaining in the window.5. For the json data type, a better data viewing experience would be great. One suggestion would be to leave it rendered as text like it is, but when you double click on a cell a window pops up that decomposes it into a pretty printed tree.6. Be able to cmd-/ a highlighted line to (un)comment it with a --7. When I open a SQL console while an object/function/etc is selected, the text inside is how to create it. That’s (occasionally) helpful. However, if I close it without modifying it, I shouldn’t be asked if I’m sure I don’t want to save it first when I haven’t edited anything inside yet.I hope this is well received. Thank you!Aaron
On Tue, 2014-05-06 at 18:45 -0700, Aaron Zinman wrote: > Hi PgAdmin team, > > I’ve been a faithful user of your product on os x for many years now. I’ve tried many other clients but in the end theyall lack some aspect of my workflow that I get out of pgadmin. There have been a few things that have long bothered methat I’d like to suggest to improve significantly the usability. > > 1. Native text editing.On a mac, the following aren’t supported > a) jumping words via option+left/right > b) jumping to EOL or BOL with cmd-left/right > c) jumping to BOD / EOD with cmd-up/down > d) home/end are mapped to EOL/BOL instead of EOD/BOD (although I quite dislike that about mac apps, so good for me) > > 2. In many text fields (editing server connection properties, editing the definition of a view), backspace is mapped tosome kind of DROP/DELETE or something other than editing text which is dangerous and highly confusing. Really really badwhen you’re editing the name of a table and then its asking you if you want to drop it. > > 3. Resizing windows doesn’t keep toolbars/subwindows with minimum size. You can end up in a case where the toolbar at thetop that was visible is now 100% squished or otherwise mutated when you shrink the window size. It should reflow better. > > These are otherwise violations of my expected behavior of a mac app. Beyond that, I have a few other requests > > 4. Columns do not expand size to fit. I often am querying json, where I end up with one column that allows for 10 charactersof visibility, and then about 700px of nothing remaining in the window. > > 5. For the json data type, a better data viewing experience would be great. One suggestion would be to leave it renderedas text like it is, but when you double click on a cell a window pops up that decomposes it into a pretty printedtree. > > 6. Be able to cmd-/ a highlighted line to (un)comment it with a -- > > 7. When I open a SQL console while an object/function/etc is selected, the text inside is how to create it. That’s (occasionally)helpful. However, if I close it without modifying it, I shouldn’t be asked if I’m sure I don’t want to saveit first when I haven’t edited anything inside yet. > > I hope this is well received. Thank you! > These seem nice ideas. Care to write a patch on these? -- Guillaume http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info http://www.dalibo.com
Hear, hear! to all of these points. Are the text navigation keys correctly supported on other OS's? Is that why no one has complained until now (that I know of)? I may have filed an official feature request for the Mac navigation keys sometime in the past year; can't remember for sure.
I can live without item 6 (I've learned to cmd-shift-k to uncomment), though it would be a nice addition.
Al
On May 6, 2014, at 6:52 PM, Aaron Zinman <aaron@empiric.al> wrote:
I should also add redo convention on the mac is shift-cmd-Z instead of pgadmin's cmd-Y.Best,AaronOn May 6, 2014, at 6:45 PM, Aaron Zinman <aaron@empiric.al> wrote:Hi PgAdmin team,I’ve been a faithful user of your product on os x for many years now. I’ve tried many other clients but in the end they all lack some aspect of my workflow that I get out of pgadmin. There have been a few things that have long bothered me that I’d like to suggest to improve significantly the usability.1. Native text editing.On a mac, the following aren’t supporteda) jumping words via option+left/rightb) jumping to EOL or BOL with cmd-left/rightc) jumping to BOD / EOD with cmd-up/downd) home/end are mapped to EOL/BOL instead of EOD/BOD (although I quite dislike that about mac apps, so good for me)2. In many text fields (editing server connection properties, editing the definition of a view), backspace is mapped to some kind of DROP/DELETE or something other than editing text which is dangerous and highly confusing. Really really bad when you’re editing the name of a table and then its asking you if you want to drop it.3. Resizing windows doesn’t keep toolbars/subwindows with minimum size. You can end up in a case where the toolbar at the top that was visible is now 100% squished or otherwise mutated when you shrink the window size. It should reflow better.These are otherwise violations of my expected behavior of a mac app. Beyond that, I have a few other requests4. Columns do not expand size to fit. I often am querying json, where I end up with one column that allows for 10 characters of visibility, and then about 700px of nothing remaining in the window.5. For the json data type, a better data viewing experience would be great. One suggestion would be to leave it rendered as text like it is, but when you double click on a cell a window pops up that decomposes it into a pretty printed tree.6. Be able to cmd-/ a highlighted line to (un)comment it with a --7. When I open a SQL console while an object/function/etc is selected, the text inside is how to create it. That’s (occasionally) helpful. However, if I close it without modifying it, I shouldn’t be asked if I’m sure I don’t want to save it first when I haven’t edited anything inside yet.I hope this is well received. Thank you!Aaron
Hello, Friday, May 9, 2014, 7:23:17 PM, Al Chou wrote: AC> Hear, hear! to all of these points. ═Are the text navigation AC> keys correctly supported on other OS's? ═Is that why no one has AC> complained until now (that I know of)? Both points 1 and 2 seem to be Mac-specific features. Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 5:45:51 AM, Aaron Zinman wrote: ... AZ> 4. Columns do not expand size to fit. I often am querying AZ> json, where I end up with one column that allows for 10 characters AZ> of visibility, and then about 700px of nothing remaining in the AZ> window. Auto-sizing feature is implemented and afaik will be included in release 1.19. AZ> 5. For the json data type, a better data viewing experience AZ> would be great. One suggestion would be to leave it rendered as AZ> text like it is, but when you double click on a cell a window pops AZ> up that decomposes it into a pretty printed tree. I feel a strong lack of a flexible Data Editor in pgAdmin. Well, Data Viewer could be a first step. It may be implemented as a popup-window with several tabs each showing it's representation of a text/blob. Plaintext, Hexadecimal, XML tree, JSON tree - these are obvious needs. Further development may introduce some kind of plugins to represent various text/blob data. That's solely observations for now... I'd love to hear opinions from the pgAdmin team. ... AZ> 7. When I open a SQL console while an object/function/etc is AZ> selected, the text inside is how to create it. That▓s AZ> (occasionally) helpful. However, if I close it without modifying AZ> it, I shouldn▓t be asked if I▓m sure I don▓t want to save it first AZ> when I haven▓t edited anything inside yet. That's the way an option of query editor "Copy SQL from main window to query tool" is implemented. It makes an initial modification of empty textarea for you, surely marking it as modified. If there are no objections, I'll look for how to fix that. -- Best regards,J.F.
On May 9, 2014, at 11:02 AM, "J.F. Oster" <jinfroster@mail.ru> wrote:
Hello,
Friday, May 9, 2014, 7:23:17 PM, Al Chou wrote:
AC> Hear, hear! to all of these points. ═Are the text navigation
AC> keys correctly supported on other OS's? ═Is that why no one has
AC> complained until now (that I know of)?
Both points 1 and 2 seem to be Mac-specific features.
Seriously, no one on other platforms uses arrow keychords to navigate around in their text? I used to do it all the time when I used Windows (where ctrl stands in for cmd in the keychord), but I had come from the Apple world (and Unix world).
Al
On Fri, 2014-05-09 at 22:02 +0400, J.F. Oster wrote: > Hello, > > Friday, May 9, 2014, 7:23:17 PM, Al Chou wrote: > > AC> Hear, hear! to all of these points. ═Are the text navigation > AC> keys correctly supported on other OS's? ═Is that why no one has > AC> complained until now (that I know of)? > > Both points 1 and 2 seem to be Mac-specific features. > > > Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 5:45:51 AM, Aaron Zinman wrote: > ... > AZ> 4. Columns do not expand size to fit. I often am querying > AZ> json, where I end up with one column that allows for 10 characters > AZ> of visibility, and then about 700px of nothing remaining in the > AZ> window. > > Auto-sizing feature is implemented and afaik will be included in > release 1.19. > > AZ> 5. For the json data type, a better data viewing experience > AZ> would be great. One suggestion would be to leave it rendered as > AZ> text like it is, but when you double click on a cell a window pops > AZ> up that decomposes it into a pretty printed tree. > > I feel a strong lack of a flexible Data Editor in pgAdmin. Well, Data > Viewer could be a first step. It may be implemented as a popup-window > with several tabs each showing it's representation of a text/blob. > Plaintext, Hexadecimal, XML tree, JSON tree - these are obvious needs. > Further development may introduce some kind of plugins to represent > various text/blob data. > That's solely observations for now... I'd love to hear opinions from > the pgAdmin team. > The whole data editor should be rewritten. It's hardly usable right now. So anything that could improve it would be great. > ... > AZ> 7. When I open a SQL console while an object/function/etc is > AZ> selected, the text inside is how to create it. That▓s > AZ> (occasionally) helpful. However, if I close it without modifying > AZ> it, I shouldn▓t be asked if I▓m sure I don▓t want to save it first > AZ> when I haven▓t edited anything inside yet. > > That's the way an option of query editor "Copy SQL from main window to > query tool" is implemented. It makes an initial modification of empty > textarea for you, surely marking it as modified. > If there are no objections, I'll look for how to fix that. > Sure, go ahead. I would if I had some time. Unfortunately, I'm trying to cover support for 9.4 on pgAdmin 1.20. -- Guillaume http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info http://www.dalibo.com
Hello Al, Friday, May 9, 2014, 10:17:50 PM, you wrote: AC>> Hear, hear! to all of these points. ═Are the text navigation AC>> keys correctly supported on other OS's? ═Is that why no one has AC>> complained until now (that I know of)? JF> Both points 1 and 2 seem to be Mac-specific features. AC> Seriously, no one on other platforms uses arrow keychords to AC> navigate around in their text? ═I used to do it all the time when AC> I used Windows (where ctrl stands in for cmd in the keychord), but AC> I had come from the Apple world (and Unix world). I should say "Mac-specific issues", not "features". The tasks mentioned here are carried out on Windows and Linux in a traditional, usual manner: jumping words: Ctrl+left/right jumping to BOL/EOL: Home/End jumping to BOD/EOD: Ctrl+Home/End -- Best regards,J.F.
On Fri, 2014-05-09 at 13:19 -0700, Aaron Zinman wrote: > So I have a startup of my own so basically I have zero time. I understand that. > If some of these are trivial to do (which means I don’t have to understand > any global nature of how pgadmin works), and you can point me in the right > way (files, functions), then I’m happy to do so. For example, would undoing > the delete->drop mapping when editing text (SO ANNOYING AND DESTRUCTIVE) be > more than an hour’s work to do? > Well, most patches are way more than an hour's work. If it was that trivial, I would do it myself and won't bother to ask. Unfortunately, they usually aren't. -- Guillaume http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info http://www.dalibo.com
Please, keep your answers on the mailing list. On Fri, 2014-05-09 at 13:29 -0700, Aaron Zinman wrote: > But what about the delete->drop in textfield bug, specifically? What is required to fix that? That’s my biggest motivationin terms of practical everyday usage being jarring. > Well, to be honest, I have no idea. It never happened to me. And I don't see how the actual code could do such a thing. -- Guillaume http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info http://www.dalibo.com
Screenshot is available here.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779054/Screen%20Shot%202014-05-09%20at%206.09.57%20PM.png
Aaron
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779054/Screen%20Shot%202014-05-09%20at%206.09.57%20PM.png
I put my cursor in the middle of the word ‘users’ and hit the delete (not backspace) key. This happens in many other places too and is very dangerous.
Aaron
--
aaron zinman, phd :: http://empiric.al :: http://azinman.com
Hello Aaron, Saturday, May 10, 2014, 5:11:55 AM, you wrote: AZ> Screenshot is available here.═ AZ> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779054/Screen%20Shot%202014-05-09%20at%206.09.57%20PM.png AZ> I put my cursor in the middle of the word ▒users▓ and hit the AZ> delete (not backspace) key. This happens in many other places too AZ> and is very dangerous. This message is triggered by the main window. Seems that the Delete keypress event is not handled in the dialog and is somehow propagated to the main window. -- Best regards,J.F.
On Sat, 2014-05-10 at 07:32 +0400, J.F. Oster wrote: > Hello Aaron, > > Saturday, May 10, 2014, 5:11:55 AM, you wrote: > > AZ> Screenshot is available here.═ > AZ> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779054/Screen%20Shot%202014-05-09%20at%206.09.57%20PM.png > > AZ> I put my cursor in the middle of the word ▒users▓ and hit the > AZ> delete (not backspace) key. This happens in many other places too > AZ> and is very dangerous. > > This message is triggered by the main window. > Seems that the Delete keypress event is not handled in the dialog and > is somehow propagated to the main window. > Or the focus is on the main window. -- Guillaume http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info http://www.dalibo.com
Hi Guillaume (and everyone),
So I just verified that when I
1. Right click on a table name
2. Go to properties
3. Focus my cursor in the middle of the name of the table
Indeed the window I’m on has the top most focus. Yet if I press the delete key that’s what I get. So there’s some other kind of issue going on.
--
When I was talking about resizing errors, here is a video of that happening (and it’s super frustrating!):
Aaron
On May 10, 2014, at 6:35 AM, Guillaume Lelarge <guillaume@lelarge.info> wrote:
On Sat, 2014-05-10 at 07:32 +0400, J.F. Oster wrote:Hello Aaron,
Saturday, May 10, 2014, 5:11:55 AM, you wrote:
AZ> Screenshot is available here.═
AZ> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779054/Screen%20Shot%202014-05-09%20at%206.09.57%20PM.png
AZ> I put my cursor in the middle of the word ▒users▓ and hit the
AZ> delete (not backspace) key. This happens in many other places too
AZ> and is very dangerous.
This message is triggered by the main window.
Seems that the Delete keypress event is not handled in the dialog and
is somehow propagated to the main window.
Or the focus is on the main window.
--
Guillaume
http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info
http://www.dalibo.com