WF Editor Suggestion: Support Multiple Notes per Step
For other WF Editor suggestions see this thread.
I've found workflow notes to be very "weak". I've come to the conclusion that allowing multiple notes per step would solve a large portion of the difficulties. To that end, I spent some time making some mockups of how I'd like this to look and behave.
First of all, I'd get rid of the default empty text box and replace it with the "New Note" button from the Notes tool. I'd change the button text from 'new' to 'add' because of the context. Clicking the main "Add Note" button would add the text box and place the cursor into it, ready to type (no extra clicks from current behavior). The disclosure part of the button would reveal the same options as it does in the Notes Tool.
I would like to see the additional anchor(s) (not the "workflow" anchor) displayed in the text box. This would be especially crucial when the anchor is a text selection since the note will obviously be in reference to a specific selection and might not make sense out of context. The disclosure triangle next to the note icon should be used to select the icon in order to be consistent with elsewhere in the program. An edit (kebab) menu to the right would, again, improve consistency.
Credit for the additional 'open' options idea goes to Tim Hensler.
An additional preference option should be placed in the New Note drop-down menu allowing the user to toggle whether to open the new note in the Notes Tool editor or stay within the workflow. This setting would be remembered from one note to the next but would allow to user to quickly switch for one note and back with the next.
An alternative to the "Open Full Editor" option would be to have a (perhaps slightly condensed) Notes editor directly in the workflow during the note creation/editing process.
The notes within a workflow should be able to toggle between "full" and "compact" views, with the full view being an expandable box.
One additional improvement would be the ability to collapse the entire notes section in a given step (preferably with the count of notes in the collapsed header).
Comments
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While I can see advantages to this approach for the advanced user, I think that the neophyte needs the blank text box approach where learning that knowing the answers are stored as Notes is optional knowledge. It may be that eventually two types of workflows need to be distinguished - a basic fill-in-the-blank version and a reiterative version that allows multiple answers per question/answer unit - per verse, person, place ... i.e. differing in anchors.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
It may be that eventually two types of workflows need to be distinguished - a basic fill-in-the-blank version and a reiterative version that allows multiple answers per question/answer unit
Thanks for clarifying to me how this particular suggestions fits into the Workflow EDITOR improvement category (we need the ability to choose between two types of Note fields when creating a custom WF!). 😉
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FL, any chance of adding a "multi-note" object to the editor soon?!
I understand MJ's reasoning for keeping a 'simple' text box version, so I'd suggest leaving the "question/answer" object alone and simply adding another option (this would likely also be the least disruptive to existing templates).
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Bump.
I'm not able/willing to really start using WFs (the most exciting L8 feature IMO) until this gets addressed.
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Workflows are still a dead horse for me (or perhaps more aptly a valley of dry bones!).
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