Temporarily disable a card

[tiguchi]

It would be nice if some cards could be temporarily disabled without having to delete and recreate them. I know they tend to successively build on each other. But I have a final "write to file" output card which I'd like to switch off so I can edit the other cards above and make some changes that can be seen in the result pane.

[kengruven]

There is actually a way to do this! I'll be the first to admit, though, that it's somewhat klugey, and not terribly visible.

The menu item Edit → Toggle Comment (shortcut: #) will change the operation under the cursor into a "NOP", and set the (unused) flag "op" to its previous title. When you press # again, the NOP will change back to its original operation.

Clearly, this feature needs some design love. Here's my initial ideas:

• [x] The Edit menu feels very far away. Adding a context menu to operations, and putting it there, could help. I'll try that.
• [x] Is this feature poorly named? Looking at it today, I don't much care for "Toggle Comment". Perhaps "Disable Operation" / "Enable Operation"?
• [x] Simply changing an operation to "NOP" makes all of its flags into warnings, which is ugly and perhaps confusing. I'd like to draw disabled operations in a special style. I have no specific plans here but I'll give it some thought.
• [ ] I'll write some documentation for this feature. (I know nobody reads the manual, anyway, but it's easy to do, and it can't hurt.)

[tiguchi]

Oh, that's great! From a coding POV that's actually quite intuitive. I guess now it clicked with me.

Intuitively I expected some context menu interaction with the cards and hoped for an option that says: "disable". It didn't cross my mind to look into the edit menu.

How about some contextual tool bar buttons that show up right in the editor window once a card is highlighted? These buttons could also provide the other options from the edit menu (insert before, after) and a delete option. Hovering over any button would reveal the name of the action and the associated keyboard shortcut so it's easier to learn.

On a related note I was struggling a bit with using just the keyboard. Knowing next to nothing about the application in the beginning made me use the mouse a lot for adding new cards and flags. Today I looked into the manual and saw that there are keyboard shortcuts.

I would have expected that hitting return (or tab) actually confirms an input (e.g. operation selection or the selection of a flag name) and moves the cursor automatically to the right, so it's possible to type in values right away. That felt quite frustrating in the beginning, but I guess that's a matter of learning new tricks.

However, maybe you could add some overlay instructions for first time users, that show the next possible (and logical) keystroke for completing an operation

[kengruven]

This is great feedback. Some thoughts:

• It's great to hear how other people use Strukt. I've done almost no user testing (mea culpa) so I'm hearing great ideas I never would have thought of.
• Toolbar buttons for common editing operations sound like a reasonable request. Will do. An overhaul of the toolbar is already in progress for some other upcoming features.
• I agree the keyboard learning situation isn't so great yet. I have several ideas, and a visual overlay is one of them. It just hasn't been a top priority yet.
• Great idea on making "return" confirm a flag and jump directly to editing the flag value. (Really, what else would you want to do, then?) I'm used to typing operations in a slightly different way, so that didn't occur to me, but it makes total sense.
• I'm on the fence about having "return" on an operation type jump to editing a flag, too, since not all operations have mandatory flags. Looking over the sample pipelines, though, most do, so I'm willing to give it a try.

[kengruven]

1.1.2 is live on the Mac App Store, and includes these improvements:

• This feature is now called "Disable Operation" (or "Enable Operation", if it's disabled)
• There's a context menu, if you right-click on an operation, which includes this
• Disabled operations (NOP) don't show warning badges for any fields

This issue is now (mostly) fixed, so I'm closing it. I've added the other items to my internal bug tracker.