I've been pretty busy with apps, groups and categories lately. I have some feedback and suggestions on the topic of CATEGORIES.
1. Dups are allowed
I noticed that it's possible to create multiple categories with the exact same name. I'm not sure if that was done by design or if that was an oversight. You can't put the same App in both but you could end up with 2 identically named categories each with different apps. I can't think of a scenario where I would want multiple categories with the exact same name. Perhaps a warning...?
So far I only have a few categories and a few apps but over time we will have a whole bunch of categories ( > 100 I'm guessing) and hundreds of apps. A couple of other observations now that I've spent some time in Portal Administration - Categories.
2. That pesky pink SAVE button. To create a new category you click Add Category, give her a name and click OK. At that point I figured I had added my new category. I don't have any apps to put into it yet, I am just building out empty category shells. I eventually clued in that I have to hit that pesky pink save button in addition to the OK button to actually save it. I know that now and I'll get used to it but it's awfully easy to make that mistake and you don't get a warning either if you have any unsaved changes sitting on the screen when exiting. If I compare Add category with Add Group, Add Environment, Add User, Add Remote Databases.... they all work the same way and they work differently from Add Categories. All those Add-something screens offer a red PLUS to start the new entry and then their entry screen has the pink save button on it.
Options I see:
A. Do nothing, we're just gonna have used to it.
B. Replace that OK button with a pesky-pink SAVE button
C. Make the OK button save the empty category
Dragging and dropping apps into categories, I can see why one would have to pesky pink button when done dragging and dropping a bunch of stuff but with the Add category I somehow wasn't expecting that. Not a big deal, just sharing user experience
3. Assigning apps to categories
Unless I just haven't discovered it yet, I believe the only way to get apps into categories is to drag-and-drop them from Portal Administration - Categories. So far I only have a few categories but that will soon change. I will have page after page after page. Dragging an app all the way from Uncategorized to MyNewCategory way down there is a pain.
Options I see:
A. Add a button (in addition to the Edit and Delete buttons that are displayed on the right side of each Category called Add Apps, or add a button called Add Apps to the pop up that appears when you click Edit Category ( I prefer the former as that saves 1 click). Then display a drop down list with all the Apps. This pop up should be similar to the one that appears when you add apps to a GROUP. The only thing different to this Add App pop-up for Categories compared to the Add Up pop up used in groups is that I would like to have an optional filter to select the from category. By and large I will be moving apps from the Unassigned category to Category X and thus it would be nice to subset it to just those apps. This filter should be optional (but possibly default) because there are times that I'll want to move an app from Category A to B.
B. In Portal Admin - Apps. Add an option to the row menu icon (Edit, Copy, Remove, Share) called "Assign" or something (I know you want to keep those option short). (BTW all the "Share" row menu option does is launch an empty email (Outlook in my case) with subject "&Body". That's it...)
C. In the "Edit" row menu. for Portal Admin - Apps, there are currently 3 tabs (icons, buttons, tabs, sections, whatever you call them blue/grey dot things)... (1) Basics (2) Settings (3) Groups. Can we add (4) Category to that? Then list the category it is currently in and provide a list of target categories. Would prefer that list of target categories to look like the App List pop-up: much smaller and more succinct than the App drag thing in the categories maintenance screen.
D. All of the above
To assign an App to a Group, you have multiple options. You can go to Apps, row menu, Edit, icon (3) or you can go to groups, click the pencil (for edit) and click Add Apps there. I would like to have the same multiple avenues available to assign apps to Categories. To me, the activity of assigning apps to a group is very similar to assigning an app to a category. Intuitively I would want to initiate that activity "from the app". I just created and installed a new app, it needs a home. So I go to Portal Admin - Apps, find my new shiny app and stick it in its category...
1. Dups are allowed
I noticed that it's possible to create multiple categories with the exact same name. I'm not sure if that was done by design or if that was an oversight. You can't put the same App in both but you could end up with 2 identically named categories each with different apps. I can't think of a scenario where I would want multiple categories with the exact same name. Perhaps a warning...?
So far I only have a few categories and a few apps but over time we will have a whole bunch of categories ( > 100 I'm guessing) and hundreds of apps. A couple of other observations now that I've spent some time in Portal Administration - Categories.
2. That pesky pink SAVE button. To create a new category you click Add Category, give her a name and click OK. At that point I figured I had added my new category. I don't have any apps to put into it yet, I am just building out empty category shells. I eventually clued in that I have to hit that pesky pink save button in addition to the OK button to actually save it. I know that now and I'll get used to it but it's awfully easy to make that mistake and you don't get a warning either if you have any unsaved changes sitting on the screen when exiting. If I compare Add category with Add Group, Add Environment, Add User, Add Remote Databases.... they all work the same way and they work differently from Add Categories. All those Add-something screens offer a red PLUS to start the new entry and then their entry screen has the pink save button on it.
Options I see:
A. Do nothing, we're just gonna have used to it.
B. Replace that OK button with a pesky-pink SAVE button
C. Make the OK button save the empty category
Dragging and dropping apps into categories, I can see why one would have to pesky pink button when done dragging and dropping a bunch of stuff but with the Add category I somehow wasn't expecting that. Not a big deal, just sharing user experience
3. Assigning apps to categories
Unless I just haven't discovered it yet, I believe the only way to get apps into categories is to drag-and-drop them from Portal Administration - Categories. So far I only have a few categories but that will soon change. I will have page after page after page. Dragging an app all the way from Uncategorized to MyNewCategory way down there is a pain.
Options I see:
A. Add a button (in addition to the Edit and Delete buttons that are displayed on the right side of each Category called Add Apps, or add a button called Add Apps to the pop up that appears when you click Edit Category ( I prefer the former as that saves 1 click). Then display a drop down list with all the Apps. This pop up should be similar to the one that appears when you add apps to a GROUP. The only thing different to this Add App pop-up for Categories compared to the Add Up pop up used in groups is that I would like to have an optional filter to select the from category. By and large I will be moving apps from the Unassigned category to Category X and thus it would be nice to subset it to just those apps. This filter should be optional (but possibly default) because there are times that I'll want to move an app from Category A to B.
B. In Portal Admin - Apps. Add an option to the row menu icon (Edit, Copy, Remove, Share) called "Assign" or something (I know you want to keep those option short). (BTW all the "Share" row menu option does is launch an empty email (Outlook in my case) with subject "&Body". That's it...)
C. In the "Edit" row menu. for Portal Admin - Apps, there are currently 3 tabs (icons, buttons, tabs, sections, whatever you call them blue/grey dot things)... (1) Basics (2) Settings (3) Groups. Can we add (4) Category to that? Then list the category it is currently in and provide a list of target categories. Would prefer that list of target categories to look like the App List pop-up: much smaller and more succinct than the App drag thing in the categories maintenance screen.
D. All of the above
To assign an App to a Group, you have multiple options. You can go to Apps, row menu, Edit, icon (3) or you can go to groups, click the pencil (for edit) and click Add Apps there. I would like to have the same multiple avenues available to assign apps to Categories. To me, the activity of assigning apps to a group is very similar to assigning an app to a category. Intuitively I would want to initiate that activity "from the app". I just created and installed a new app, it needs a home. So I go to Portal Admin - Apps, find my new shiny app and stick it in its category...
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