RiverWare Ideas -- Phil -- 11-03-2010 (a)

Enhancements requiring architectural changes:

• "UNDO" of Slot value edits -- all changes to data made from the GUI, including "propagated" effects, need to be encoded in a reversible stack.
• RiverWare Data Model API / Plugin, deployable as a separate component, e.g. for a web viewer application.

Under-leveraged features:

• Slot Snapshots -- it should be easy to show a Series Slot along with its Snapshot copies -- in the Open Slot Dialog and the SCT.
• "Recent" directory lists should be available to the "Save" operations, as a cascaded menu, ("Save In" >> ...). (We have this only for the "Reopen" operations).

Miscellaneous usability issues:

• Review of Context Menus for common workflows.
• Review of Copy/Paste in RiverWare. (e.g. the "paste as inputs" nuance is overdone).
• Review of dialog parenting issues. Minimizing certain dialogs also hides other dialogs which where shown from the first dialog. (Astonishing).
• Possible "File" menu operations in many dialogs:
  • Copy List [/Table] to Clipboard ... (For dialogs with a major list or table -- or an analogous operation. This was recently added to the Supplies and Accounts managers).
  • Save as Image ... (This is easy to implement. Already implemented as "Export Workspace Image" on the workspace).

Accounting:

• Supply Selection: The Supply Manager (with some changes) might serve as a better Supply Selector than does GUS.
• Accounting System Configuration wants to have separate tabs.

SCT:

• SCT: needs easier way of ordering SeriesSlots. (This could be done on a tab similar to the Scalar and Table Slot Tabs. Needs to support Divider items too).
• SCT: override slot display settings (scale, units, precision) ... OR at least, be able to bring up individual Slot Config dialogs from the SCT.

Plotting:

• Plot Page dialog instances are un-managed. Showing a Plot Page brings up a whole new dialog, even if it is already shown.
• Can't get from the Plot Page dialog to the Output Configuration Dialog for that Plot Page.
• Selected time-range ornamentation ... for example, selected timesteps in an Open Series Slot Dialog could be "painted" as a background color in Plots having a time axis ... possibly dynamically ... not necessarily limited to a single contiguous time range.

Other Dialogs:

• Open Object Dialog: ditch drag-and-drop in favor of multiple-item selection and operations (e.g. Plot or "Copy" multiple selected Slots).
• Provide a "Slot Clipboard" Dialog (for the already existing Slot Clipboard) to manage a transient list of Slots, e.g. for copying from one part of RiverWare to another ... with import/export (list) capabilities.