Sonny Software

I really like the duplicate selector dialog, being able to see all the duplicates and the info of the selected pair is much better than for example Endnote's UI for this.

Clicking the ❖ brings up the compare field dialog, and what would be nice is to have a simple ← & → buttons in the compare field dialog to copy the info between fields without having to manually select box, copy, select other box & paste.

Even better would be to somehow have a ← & → for the Select Duplicates dialog itself, so each field in the list had the buttons in a gutter between the two columns to copy left or right. This is the sort of UI file compare/merge programs like Araxis use.

Locked scrolling (scroll the left ref column and the right column scrolls to match) would also be cool, this is one feature Endnote does.

A BUG: ❖ Contained in Groups: is completely unclickable (and thus uneditable), this information is really important to sync to the reference to remain, yet I cannot do this in the Select Duplicates dialog, forces me to manually have to do this for each ref...

It's uneditable because it is not a property of the reference, it is a property of the group(s) the reference belongs to. To change this you'd have to edit the group, not the reference.

Jon
Sonny Software

Is there any way to sync this info between duplicate refs within the duplicate dialog (apart from having to cancel the duplicate dialog finding the two duplicates and dragging the ungrouped ref onto each of the to-be-deleted ref's groups)?

Having ← & → buttons for the groups would solve the user-facing part of this (you'd have to edit the groups in the background to add the to-be-kept ref to the same groups as the to-be-deleted ref)...

References don't know what groups they belong in, groups know that. The information you see in the comparison window is just to let you know what groups the refs are in (in case that makes a difference in which you delete). To edit a static groups contents, you need to edit the group.

Jon
Sonny Software

Jon wrote:References don't know what groups they belong in, groups know that. The information you see in the comparison window is just to let you know what groups the refs are in (in case that makes a difference in which you delete). To edit a static groups contents, you need to edit the group.

BE knows which groups contain which refs, so surely if that information is present in the dialog, BE has queried the groups for that Ref ID, can BE not then add the duplicate ref ID to the same groups?

Back to the original request, would it be easy to add buttons to copy left / right for the other fields?

Groups are edited in groups, not the duplicate reference window. That would not be an appropriate place to manipulate them. That will not change.

As for a copy left/right arrow, the request has been recorded.

Jon
Sonny Software

And the ← & → functionality is now available in 12.5.9, thanks Jon. I think the simplified field interface (no edit pane) is more streamlined, but someway to disable the "are you sure" requestor would be appreciated...

I thought a lot about that. The problem is that it is destructive (i.e. no undo-able). So a misplaced click and you've lost data And it's not feasible to make it undoable. This seemed like the best solution. Anyone else think the confirm dialog should be removed?

Jon
Sonny Software

P.S. As a power user feature I could allow a keyboard modifier to the click. For example, Command-click means don't verify. I'm already leaning toward Option-click if we allow editing again (see this thread):

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3854

I'd be very happy to use a Cmd (override) and Option (merge) click for this, with the default being the cautious requestor.

I'm working on a new UI for this that will hopefully address all concerns. It would work like this in the Preview and Verify remove dups window:

1. Clicking on a red symbol next to a field name would open two editing fields at the bottom of the same window, with the corresponding text in each.
2. Arrowheads would let you move one to the other. OR, you could copy/cut/paste from one to the other (i.e. merge elements).
3. Click on Save to save the changes.

So if you're just moving one field to the other, that's 3 clicks (no save confirmation dialog is needed). If you want to merge fields, it's two clicks and a copy/paste.

I think the prototype I'm working with has a much cleaner look and is quite flexible. Feedback welcome (it's quite a bit of work to implement, so I'm throwing out the idea here first).

Jon
Sonny Software

Personally I would still want a one-click override, as many "different" fields just don't need lots of UI. I don't have many duplicates left, but when I was going through my database and had ~30 dups, each additional click is just a real pain when most fields just need a copy-left or copy-right.

With your current red arrows (which is a two-click solution, or click and [enter] keyboard for a copy at the moment), you could enable a CMD override, but it sounds your new prototype would lose any way to do a quick ← or → — I understand for those who need to merge this may be more streamlined, but for those who need to get through lots of duplicates copying mostly it is a step back (three-clicks and more UI to look at).

So my suggestion is the following: Keep the red arrows, with a CMD override added. But without CMD, clicking either arrow opens the editing fields UI you have proposed. That gets the merge UI yet allows power-users the ability to process lots of duplicates if needed.

Another suggestion is to allow the merge UI to have keyboard access (left and right arrow copies left/right). It is harder to bind [enter] as perhaps people would need newlines in the merged field.

The new UI works like this. There are no more right-left arrows in the duplicates compare window, just the current ❖ symbol. It will be red if the fields differ. For regular users, clicking on the symbol (red or blue) brings up the side-by-side fields in the same window (sort of a pop-up display). You can then swap one field with the other (there are arrowheads) or edit/merge the fields. Changes are not committed until you click a Save button. For power users, Command-clicking on the ❖ symbol immediately moves that field's contents to the corresponding field in the other reference, no other clicks required.

Jon
Sonny Software

OK, sounds perfect!!!