Request - Can container levels and part attributes be color blocked?

[happiah-madson]

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Describe what you're trying to do It's really hard to visually interact with data that repeats in exports, such as container level data (i.e., https://arctos.database.museum/info/container_contents.cfm?container_id=22957332) or part data (i.e., https://arctos.database.museum/Reports/part_data_download.cfm?table_name=api_happiahmadson_20241125111101707_601&view=flat_old_thing)

Could we use color blocking to vastly improve readability? For example, instead of:

We could have:

This would make it much easier to know what level of set of data you are looking at as you scroll through you table.

@dustymc @Jegelewicz @campmlc

[dustymc]

Suggest this be merged into https://github.com/ArctosDB/arctos/issues/8110 - a unified 'make these related forms look/act/etc. like that' issue before going to dev seems somewhere between 'nice' and 'critical.'

[happiah-madson]

Agreed that its somewhere between 'nice' and 'critical,' but it is very confusing for a naive user for the text that you click on to get somewhere to not be the title of the page you get to or the name of the page in the browser tab. When you know what's going on, it is easier to parse, but it's pretty difficult to know how you got somewhere (and how to do it again) when the names aren't consistent.

[happiah-madson]

I know there was rumblings of a UI WG picking up again (?) I'm happy to go and cause problems, if it is happening, as long as I can make the meeting times!

[dustymc]

confusing for a naive user

See also https://github.com/ArctosDB/arctos/issues/8333#issuecomment-2498954895 - agreed, but not sure "naive" is necessary, confusing and inconsistent is confusing and inconsistent even when change is hard.

UI WG

Sounds right to me. I suspect the hardest part is going to be getting the scope right - if it's to fix one form if may make things even more inconsistent, if it's to fix all container-involved everythings then it'll get bogged down and do nothing, surely there's a sweet spot in the middle somewhere!

Thanks!

[happiah-madson]

surely there's a sweet spot in the middle somewhere

😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬😬

[happiah-madson]

@ebraker could we get this on a UI WG meeting? And possibly meet sometime...in December?

[dustymc]

a UI WG

I think that's dead (but still kinda hanging around??) and not relevant (it was one specific UI, ish...) and this needs something new but IDK??

https://handbook.arctosdb.org/best_practices/committee.html