Bugzilla – Full Text Bug Listing
| Summary: | Columns not sorted in BIRT chart Select Data tab | ||||||
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| Product: | z_Archived | Reporter: | Paul Rogers <progers> | ||||
| Component: | BIRT | Assignee: | Heng Li <liheeng> | ||||
| Status: | VERIFIED FIXED | QA Contact: | Maggie Shen <lshen> | ||||
| Severity: | enhancement | ||||||
| Priority: | P3 | CC: | bluesoldier, wenfeng.fwd | ||||
| Version: | 2.2.2 | Keywords: | plan | ||||
| Target Milestone: | 2.5.0 M7 | ||||||
| Hardware: | PC | ||||||
| OS: | Windows XP | ||||||
| Whiteboard: | Obsolete | ||||||
| Attachments: |
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We should look into larger UI improvements in this area. One idea is to have the data preview area selectable to either show data preview (as the UI is shown today), or a new view that works better when the user needs to choose from more columns. The data page would show the data preview by default if there are few columns (because as Paul says, the UI was really designed with few columns in mind). If the user had lots of columns, the data page would default to the new view. The new view could be some kind of tree of data columns (we have to think about the best approach here), but wouldn't show any data preview to simply the view and give us more flexibility in the column presentation. Let's make 2 changes to fix this situation. 1. For the current column view, arrange the columns alphabetically. That way it is always predictable where each column will appear. 2. Create a new view that can display a larger number of columns better. -Directly below the text "Use the right-click menu or drag..." add a checkbox that says "Show data preview." If there less than 6 columns, this checkbox is checked by default, and the current column-based view shows. If there are 6 or more columns, it is unchecked by default, and a new view appears (as described below). The user can check and uncheck the box to change views. This setting is remembered within the chart builder session, but once they close the dialog, the user's setting is forgotten. The new view will be a list control displaying the column names. It will have horizontal and vertical scroll bars as necessary. If the user hovers over a column name, a tool tip will appear showing a very simple data preview. The tool tip will be a semi-colon delimited list, truncated to 50 characters (we might change this value depending on how it looks). The user controls available in the column-based view should be available in the list view as well. Right-clicking on a column name should show the same context menu. Also, the user should be able to drag a column name into any of the fields above, using the same rules as the column-based view. Fixed. verified on build 2.5.0 v20090326-0630. |
Created attachment 94464 [details] Product Sales by Country.rptdesign Open the attached report. Open the chart builder on the chart. Go to the Select Data tab. Note that this chart is bound to the table in the report, and that table has a large number of columns: some from the data set, some are computed aggregates, and some are bound to fields. Now, quick, try to find "PriorYearSalesTotal." You will have to look at each column one-by-one. The columns are currently listed in the order that I created them. I can guess where to look (because I somewhat remember what I created when), but you cannot. The UI in this tab seems best suited to data sets with just a few columns. The UI makes it difficult to work with large numbers of columns. I expected it would be easier to work with large numbers of columns because such queries are common, and the data binding mechanism in tables produces large numbers of bindings. Some suggestions: * Show columns alphabetically. (Or, if some people want to see the columns in original order, provide a UI control to choose between two. Ensure that the setting is persistent.) * Group report item columns by type: 1) inherited from data set, 2) aggregates (perhaps further sorted by group), and 3) bound data items. * Provide filtering, perhaps using the same criteria as the above selection: data set rows, fields for a given group, fields for the overall table, bound data items, etc. * Provide some information about the columns, perhaps using coloring or pop-up text. Where is it defined? What's its full and display names? In any event, the near-random column order in the current UI is very tedious to use.