English > Feature Suggestions

Collection Notes

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AimHere:
Hi,

I'd like to see a feature added, which I would call "Collection Notes". This would be a freeform text-entry field in which I could write notes regarding the database as a whole (as opposed to individual movies or people). For example, one might use this to make note of which Web data source(s) were used for importing information/posters, what genres are included, one's rationale for using the Seen/Wish fields, and so on. If possible, it ought to support clickable links, in much the same way that the Comments/Biography/Description/etc. fields do now.

The "Collection Notes" would appear in a pop-up window, called up from a new toolbar button. The text would initially be locked and uneditable when the window first opens, one would have to click on an "Edit" button at the bottom of the window to actually make it editable (this would prevent accidental changes).

And there ought to be a toggle option in Preferences which, if checked, would cause the "Collection Notes" to automatically appear when a database file is opened. (it should be unchecked by default).

Regards,
Aimhere

nostra:
That's smth new :) OK, I am adding this suggestion to my TODO list, but I am not sure this functionality is interesting for many users, so if someone needs this as well then feel free to say it ;)

rick.ca:
This is an interesting idea! Taking a slightly broader view, it makes me think of using a help authoring tool to do the same thing. I just tried the free-for-personal-use version of HelpNDoc. I'm amazed at how easy and quick it is to create (or edit) and recompile a help project. This includes all the features of help files we are used to—a built-in tree structure, internal and external hyperlinks, images, etc.

I'm not suggesting anyone would want to write a help file, but this would be a very powerful tool for doing the ad-hock kind of thing AimHere is talking about. Having difficulty remembering some alternative configuration settings? Open your help project in HelpNDoc. Create a new topic. Paste in a screen shot of the configuration page. Add some notes. Add a link to a helpful topic here or the wiki. Recompile. It's a little cumbersome if all you need is a notepad-like solution, but this is far out-weighed by the power and versatility available. Best of all, it's not asking nostra to reinvent the wheel for a function that may not interest many users.

As a minimum, a link would have to be added to the help menu that would open the user-created help file (e.g., %install directory%\Help\PVDHelp.chm). But I would hope there would also be a relatively easy way to implement a context sensitive help capability. I don't know how these things work, but I'm imagining an "F1 handler" that would call a help file TopicID that is the same as some PVD object ID (i.e., for a pane or dialog). Obviously, if there were no such TopicID (or no help file), it would have to do nothing, or issue a "no help for this item" message.


--- Quote ---so if someone needs this as well then feel free to say it
--- End quote ---

Okay, I've talked myself into it... I NEED this!!! ;D

I can't stop... :-[

We don't need this now that we have a wiki, but imagine we wanted to create a user created help system. We could create a new "Help" forum here, with a topic for each of the help-addressable objects in the program. The first post would be used to maintain a current version of the help file page for that topic. The topic would be used for discussing improvements and additions to that topic. It could also be used to discuss support issues that relate to that topic. It would then be easy to maintain a project file made up of the first post in each topic. Users could download that file and add their own notes to it—turning it into a personalized help/collection notes file. 8)

AimHere:
Rick,

Geeze, all I wanted was a simple text box!  Let's not make a big production number out of it, nostra has bigger fish to fry! ;D

Aimhere

patch:
Agree enhanced help would be an improvement. Not convinced local user maintained help is the way to go as shared knowledge is likely to be more valuable. Hence linking to online wiki imo is going to work better.

I can't think of why I would want a user note on database give I can already add info to windows file or create a separate text document with associated notes.

Interested to here what others think.

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