Shelve dialogs (especially on multiple screens)

[Thomas Linder Puls]

I find the shelve functionality very useful. And therefore I would like it to be more stream lined. I think you involve far more dialogs in this functionality than what is necessary, there are three levels of modal dialogs (2 consecutive dialogs on third level). And the progress of the un-shelve operation is actually signaled in the status line on the main window in fourth level.

Redesigning this interaction will of course require some reconsideration from your side, which I acknowledge can take time to think through and get right.

Until, that (eventually) comes you can however without much difficulties get the parents of the all these dialogs in place.
If you like I work with two screens and have the Vault GUI client open on the secondary screen you will see:

• Main window on screen 2
• First level unshelve dialog on screen 1
• Second level unshelve dialog on screen 2
• First third level unshelve dialog on screen 1
• Second third level unshelve dialog on screen 2

The most irritating consequence of this is that I wait for response while the other screen actually have shown the response and wait for my next step.

[Beth]

I'm not sure I understand fully.

If you're on Vault 9.0, then could connect to our Vault demo server and show some screenshots in an example?

user: guest1
password: guest1
server: vaultdemo.sourcegear.com (or vaultprodemo.sourcegear.com if using Vault Professional)

If you're on an older version of Vault, then could you send example screenshots to support at sourcegear.com?

[Thomas Linder Puls]

You will need to have two screens attached to your computer to reproduce the problem. And they have to be extending the desktop (rather than duplicating it).

While trying to make screen short I found that the "Choose Repository" dialog also have the problem.

I start at my secondary screen (the one to my right). As you can see the "Connect To Server" dialog appears on top of the main window:

Starting at the secondary screen

SecondaryScreen.png (46.44 KiB) Viewed 10608 times

But when I have connected to the server, the Choose Repository dialog comes up on my primary screen (I.e. the screen that I answer this mail on):

Choose Repository on Primary Screen

PrimaryScreen.png (40.3 KiB) Viewed 10608 times

[Beth]

Would meeting so that I can see this in action live work for you? If so could you send an email to support at sourcegear.com with a link to this forum thread? I won't have an opening until next week, but we could at least get this scheduled.

[Thomas Linder Puls]

I can't see how that should help: A meeting will only share one screen, but to see the problem you will need two displays.

My setup is like this:

DisplaySettings

displaySettings.png (36.23 KiB) Viewed 10576 times

In the mail above vault main window and the Connect To Server dialog is on Display 2. But when I press connect the Choose Repository dialog appears on Display 1.

You may notice that the task bars (in the left side of the images) have different contents, and that the background stuff in two images is different because it is from two different displays.

[jclausius]

Thomas,

We'll take a look at the behavior in that environment, and report back. Thanks for the report.

[jclausius]

Thomas,

I had a chance to take a look at this, and I agree the steps required for unshelving can be a bit tedious and should be streamlined. I've logged a feature request for this.

In regards to the dialog placements themselves, most dialogs are configured to retain size/position/monitor placement. So in regards to dialog positions, what you are seeing is the last position/state the dialog was in before it was subsequently closed. If you move the Choose Repository dialog to monitor #2 position (100,100), then the next time (even if the main window was moved to a different monitor), it will retain the position of it's last open (#2/(100,100)). This way people can configure the layout of how their GUI client works regardless of how many monitors are used.

I mentioned there are exceptions, the Connect to Server or Undo Checkout dialogs are some of those exceptions.

Hope this helps explain the behavior.

F:18388

[Thomas Linder Puls]

I had a chance to take a look at this, and I agree the steps required for unshelving can be a bit tedious and should be streamlined. I've logged a feature request for this.

Thank you.

Regarding the dialogs I understand the explanation. I do however think that remembering the "global" coordinates is undesirable in most cases. In most cases I want things to happen on the same display as my main window. I.e. if I do an operation from the display #1 and then move the main window to display #2 and do the same operation, then I would prefer that the dialogs also opens on display #2.

For two displays it could perhaps make sense to work with same and other display. But I would not know how to deal with more displays.

Alternatively, you should/could decide which dialogs that should stay on the same screen as their "parent" and which that has global positioning.

[jclausius]

Yes. Mostly I wanted to describe the behavior you reported, as it is working as coded.

A change is not something to be taken lightly. There is the problem of extended desktops having different resolution, so a size/position may not look correct if the parent windows is used.

In addition, care must be taken on what to change as what is good for some may not be good for others. For example, there are users who have the Commit / Check In dialog come up on a monitor/different location altogether so the main window can still be seen. It could cause problems for those users if a change was made.

However, I agree there could be a bit more discretion on what dialogs should exhibit this behavior.