New design: please bring functionality that was removed

[apolyton]

@dreev

Confirmed. The goalname (formerly known as “slug”) is the unique identifier of a goal, and part of the URL for the goal. If you change it then anything that referenced that goal will break.

Maybe the language of the UI should change then, from “can break” to “will break”

[apb]

I actually already made that change, it would be deployed if the internet weren’t taking a sick day today…

[apolyton]

To go back a bit on my original post, items 1 and 2 are now covered, many thanks! The gallery is usable again.

@apolyton

3. Quick add form (can be put in a slide-tab-whatever, not always shown)

@dreev, @apb that would be great if it could happen as well.

[gretchen]

@dreev

I disagree with @gretchen’s point about shades of nuance in the old design. We were just conflating things left and right, making the user manually pick a unique identifier and then sometimes but not consistently suppressing it in the UI. So if you were careful or lucky or used the right subset of features then things worked the way you wanted but it was all wrong and, believe me, caused bigger problems than lack of spaces or mixed case causes now.

This was not really a point it’s possible to disagree with, as it was a description of how I used the old UI - albeit phrased in the general. I can definitely believe that it caused problems, possibly bigger ones than I see now, but that’s not my experience.

At any rate, what I’d mostly like now is a better understanding of how the fields are conceptualized internally - the spec doesn’t really describe what the intended uses of goalname, goaldescription, and fineprint are.

As best I can tell:

• goalname = The shorthand reference for the goal that’s shown everywhere. One word (no spaces). First 16 characters (or a set width?) displayed in all caps on dashboard. Full url is displayed at top of goal page. Example use: “Pushups”

• goaldescription = Slightly more information about the goal. Not displayed in dashboard, but full description available by hovering over goalname. Only the characters which fit in the description entry box are displayed at top of goal page (number varies based on letter width). In gallery view, goaldescription is appended to goalname - total characters displayed are then limited to a fixed width (with full description in hovertext). Example use: “Do more of them”

• fineprint = Nitty-gritty details. Contains the legacy goal statement. Only visible under the “Settings” tab as an editable field. Does not render URLs as clickable links.

The example use for goaldescription doesn’t really clarify anything for me - “Do more” is pretty obvious from the graph already. So what information is this field intended to contain?

[kenoubi]

@dreev

First, to avoid confusing ourselves with terminology, there are only two fields relevant to the debate:

goalname (internally still sometimes called slug but we should stop that)

goal description (internally: goalblurb)

We know. We’re using the old terms (slug and title) because we like the way it worked before better.

That said, now that I’ve acknowledged that’s why I’m doing it, it seems obviously ineffective, so I’m going to use your terms from now on if I remember.

@dreev

Or maybe we’ll stick in @kenoubi’s togglability idea for the dashboard but that’s it until Christmas!

Actually… the gallery isn’t bad now. Many of my descriptions can probably just be deleted as they’re repeats of the goalname.

If you made clicking toggle between goalname and description (like the countdown vs. deadline does) on the dashboard and the goal page, and made it sticky, I think everyone would stop complaining. Not sure whether you’d find that palatable.

@joshpitzalis

It is important for the goal name to be immediately identifiable from the deadline information, otherwise it just looks like one long blurb and you can’t immediately identify which goal is which.

Can I suggest considering the use of color instead? I was actually kind of surprised that the goalnames don’t use the safe-days colors like the buttons and graph outlines do. (Of course, you’d have to be careful about the font weight, or use it as a background or outline rather than text color, to keep it legible.)

[dreev]

@drtall

Oh woah, so this is official then?

You mean togglability? If we added that would you prefer the new UI to the old one?

@apolyton

3. Quick add form (can be put in a slide-tab-whatever, not always shown)

Well, we’d rather improve the dashboard data entry until you prefer it to the old, somewhat opaque quick-add box.

@gretchen

what I’d mostly like now is a better understanding of how the fields are conceptualized internally

I endorse your synopses! We intend fine print to be shown publicly (unless you mark it private). For goalname and description, I’d just set them such that displaying “goalname: description” is most useful.

[apolyton]

@dreev

You mean togglability? If we added that would you prefer the new UI to the old one?

Togglability between slugs (names) and titles (descriptions) would definitely resolve the issue for me. As shown in my screenshots in the original post, I use spaces, parentheses, points, etc in my titles to provide not just a more verbose (human understandable) title but in some cases also the current rate of the goal (e.g. “5hx4” for “5 hours in 4 days of the week” on a RescueTime goal). I have exactly 0 need to see the slug(name) in the UI
That said, showing both would be tolerable. Being able to toggle between the two would be ideal

By the way, in the goal view there is again 0 need to see my own username so there is definitely room for the title (description)

[apolyton]

@dreev

Well, we’d rather improve the dashboard data entry

In that case I would

1. allow more dates in the drop-down (at least 7-10 days in the past, not just yesterday and today)
2. change the layout to allow a bigger input box (for example the +/- buttons can be be smaller and stacked on the left)

thank you

[dreev]

@apolyton

allow more dates in the drop-down

@apolyton

change the layout to allow a bigger input box

I’m thinking there should instead by a way to toggle to advanced entry. But I’m not sure how to do that without adding clutter.

[kenoubi]

@dreev

I’m thinking there should instead by a way to toggle to advanced entry. But I’m not sure how to do that without adding clutter.

Make it a 3rd entry in the date drop-down? “Today, Yesterday, Advanced Entry”?

[drtall]

@dreev

You mean togglability? If we added that would you prefer the new UI to the old one?

No, I was asking if it is official that this won’t be getting anymore work invested until after the Todoist/Paypal work is done.

I feel like togglability is just sort of papering over the problem. Will I be able to set my goal description on the new goal screen? Or will it keep being populated as the goalname or be populated blank? With the toggle, will it still be displayed in all caps and limited to very few displayed characters?

I’m worried about descriptions not being a first-class feature and suffering the same fate is integery down the road.

[apb]

I think it’s more important to keep cleaning up things from the redesign before thinking about todoist/paypal. That would include

• integery (which is totally not dead yet, just haven’t gotten to it).
• getting people somewhat satisfied about where we are with goal names/descriptions.
• toggleability on the dashboard, respecting case
• responsive dashboard width

You can already (as of yesterday) set your goal description when creating a new goal.

[chelsea]

this is an interesting idea.
i also miss back in the pre-release beeta days when it was a full datepicker calendar, that would make me miss advanced entry less

(keyboard shortcut to popup a quickadd menu anybody? anybody? bueller?)