altermattw
commented
11 years ago The sidebar may duplicate the "Navigator" component proposed in the "GUI Layout" issue. In general, it sounds like we're in agreement that there should be an easily accessible component, probably at the side of the screen (maybe on the right to be consistent with touch screens?) that would enable the user to concisely display a list of objects and navigate among them. These objects could be:
- Reports (aka "output elements"). Organizing these is the main function of SPSS's navigation panel on the left of the screen.
- Data sets.
- User-created text files, similar to sticky notes?
- Help files
In addition, it would be great to implement folder or tree structure. Some displays would be automated: organize by DV, or date, or analysis procedure, or by type of report (tests, plots, or tables). Others would be user-defined. In terms of interactivity, we could borrow Apple's iOS idea of dragging one report onto another and they would go into a folder that could be named.
The sidebar should be retractable, (and probably completely omitted in tablet/phone mode), and customizable, in the sense that users could select "components to show" there.
For example they could choose to add a "smart preview" component, which provides a small preview/summary/contextual information of the active element. For instance if the active element is the dataset, the "preview" could show information about the number of variables, number of rows, a label describing the dataset, etc. Maybe it would contain a list of the variables in it. If the active element is a variable, it could show its type and basic summary information for it.
Another component could be an "object list", which would show all available objects in the current workspace. An other one could have all "reports", including graphs, tables, tests etc. Another could be "help tips" offering some tip related to the currently active element. And so on. On a smaller screen, these same components might be reachable in another way.