0003754: Saving "custom parameters" has a confusing UX

Notes
(0021166) WubTheCaptain (reporter) 2020-01-30 16:21 edited on: 2020-01-30 16:30	I get it: It's a powerful and useful feature, but I only learned how to use it through trial/misdirection and error. Once I learned something to work someway (based on misconceptions), the program would quickly re-educate me things to work differently than what I just learned. Repeat until the loop is complete and all pieces fit together again. Perhaps populating the empty dropdown menu with an non-selectable option could be helpful to understand what the dropdown menu is for? It could also be helpful to display a disabled (greyed out) "save" button when the custom parameters text box is empty, instead of hiding that feature. I've never known this to be a thing, since I started using Doomseeker from version 1.1! The missing help text to the buttons should be added, obviously.

(0022533) Zalewa (developer) 2022-12-18 14:19	The portion of the UX confusion comes from the fact that there are no buttons when the input is empty. Also the buttons could use some tooltips to explain how they work. This is fixed here:'https://bitbucket.org/Doomseeker/doomseeker/commits/51102af4f2cddd841bdc67ad3c103c21b0d0a1d9 [^]' Now there are two issues remaining: 1. The dropdown arrow for an empty combo box. 2. The disconnect between the "OK/Cancel" buttons of the entire dialog box and the "Save/Remove" buttons for the parameters list. So, ad. 1, the dropdown arrow is the element of the QComboBox. Since QComboBox is desireable in this place, because this widget should behave like a combo box when there are items saved there, I don't think we should be replacing it with some other widget like QLineEdit+QCompleter. People (on qtcentre) also offer some suggestions to either subclass QComboBox and overwrite the paint event to hide the arrow or to apply a stylesheet to hide the arrow. Neither solution seems future-proof to me, and the stylesheet one is downright hackish (and doesn't work). Some solution would also be to make the UI toggle between the QComboBox and a QLineEdit depending on whether there are saved elements - just swap the visibility of two separate items. But this is extra complexity in the code, more difficult to maintain, and bug prone. All of these "solutions" don't appear worthy to me, so perhaps instead of trying to hide the arrow for an empty list at all costs, it should be more apparent that this is a list ready to be filled by the user? And, now, maybe what I already did in the commit is enough? If there's a "save" button that is next to the list and that is always visible, then the user will be able to deduce that this is a list ready for elements being added to it, therefore maybe the problem is solved already? The ok/cancel problem (ad. 2) is something that I don't necesarilly want to solve (change the behavior of). Yes, when you save the parameter list and then cancel the dialog box it may be somewhat unexpected that something got saved anyway, but this something is only an internal storage of the program. It doesn't really affect the configuration/settings of the program. The tooltips added in the commit may help reduce the confusion here, maybe?

(0022668) Zalewa (developer) 2023-01-05 12:42	Beta package for Windows available at the beta auto-update channel and at: 'https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/doomseeker/doomseeker-1.3.3~beta-230105-1140_windows.zip [^]' [^] Please test if the custom parameters in the engine config box are being saved, removed and used properly.

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Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2020-01-30 15:56	WubTheCaptain	New Issue
2020-01-30 15:57	WubTheCaptain	File Added: 2020-01-30-154212_maim.png
2020-01-30 15:57	WubTheCaptain	File Added: 2020-01-30-154230_maim.png
2020-01-30 15:57	WubTheCaptain	File Added: 2020-01-30-155734_maim.png
2020-01-30 16:00	WubTheCaptain	Description Updated	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:10	WubTheCaptain	Description Updated	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:11	WubTheCaptain	Description Updated	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:13	WubTheCaptain	Description Updated	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:13	WubTheCaptain	Description Updated	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:14	WubTheCaptain	Description Updated	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:15	WubTheCaptain	Reproducibility	always => have not tried
2020-01-30 16:21	WubTheCaptain	Note Added: 0021166
2020-01-30 16:24	WubTheCaptain	Description Updated	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:29	WubTheCaptain	Note Edited: 0021166	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:29	WubTheCaptain	Note Edited: 0021166	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:30	WubTheCaptain	Note Edited: 0021166	View Revisions
2020-01-30 16:31	WubTheCaptain	Severity	trivial => tweak
2022-12-17 23:35	Zalewa	Status	new => acknowledged
2022-12-17 23:36	Zalewa	Target Version	=> 1.4.0
2022-12-18 00:14	Zalewa	Relationship added	related to 0003755
2022-12-18 12:43	Zalewa	Assigned To	=> Zalewa
2022-12-18 12:43	Zalewa	Status	acknowledged => assigned
2022-12-18 14:19	Zalewa	Note Added: 0022533
2022-12-18 14:19	Zalewa	Status	assigned => feedback
2023-01-05 12:42	Zalewa	Note Added: 0022668
2023-01-05 12:42	Zalewa	Status	feedback => needs testing
2023-02-19 14:13	Zalewa	Status	needs testing => resolved
2023-02-19 14:13	Zalewa	Fixed in Version	=> 1.4.0
2023-02-19 14:13	Zalewa	Resolution	open => fixed
2024-11-03 19:11	Zalewa	Status	resolved => closed