Drag and drop for reordering in project browser

[vldmrrr]

Currently the project browser supports drag and drop for moving objects into other object. But in order to change the order of objects at the same level, one has to use arrow buttons in toolbar. This interface is so much, well, outdated and inconvenient, you would not find it anywhere in modern applications.

I find that I often need to reorder objects when working with requirements. I hope a better way to reorder can be included in next major release of EA

[qwerty]

Those green arrows are one of the genius inventions of the Sparxians. Why use common practice if you have your own ideas? Same goes for operations/attributes where you now even have to use the keyboard (which isn't bad, but then again; they had those arrows formerly and removed them later).

q.

[Glassboy]

Those green arrows are one of the genius inventions of the Sparxians. Why use common practice if you have your own ideas? Same goes for operations/attributes where you now even have to use the keyboard (which isn't bad, but then again; they had those arrows formerly and removed them later).

That did my head in.  I was trying to demonstrate the value of data modelling to a bunch of people that never do it and I suddenly found myself really confused on how the whole dialog box worked.

[Eve]

A standard tree control doesn't give information about dragging "between" items, which is what you would need to re-order.

qwerty, are you suggesting we invented arrows, using them for re-ordering or just using green arrows for re-ordering?

I think you'll find that arrows of some kind are a much more common UI pattern than a drag and drop. Although certainly drag and drop has become more common with touch screens and html lists.

[qwerty]

Simon, I'm working on a Mac and they have quite strict style guides which most people take serous. I know that in the Windoze world this is taken quite sloppy. So the "green arrow" as concept is probably not Sparx' invention. Just the very representation (they were not there in the earlier versions of EA).

Anyhow, you already use drag and drop for moving elements into packages. Using a drag pointer (like done on the Mac) you can extend it to order elements. I know it's sometimes a bit fiddly to place elements this way, but for most cases it's a "more natural" way to move things. If there were a consistent concept behind it all, people would have much less stress in working with a tool.

q.

[vldmrrr]

Simon, I'm working on a Mac and they have quite strict style guides which most people take serous. I know that in the Windoze world this is taken quite sloppy.

I do not regularly use mac since 10.4, but at the time I felt all serious consideration of User Interface guideline ended with os 8, and UI became really incoherent with OS X. My later encounters with macs just reconfirmed my choice to stay away from that UI.

Anyhow, using mostly Windows and Linux, I can pretty much in every application rely on the following d&d behavior in hierarchical lists:

• when you drag over an item that can contain other items (folder), the item gets highlighted to indicate that; when you drop in that position, the load goes inside the target item.
  
• when you drag over an item that can not contain others, or on the margin of a folder, the expected insert position is indicated as a line after the target item, whil target item is not highlighted; when you drop, the load is inserted after the target item.
  

You can check this behavior, for example, on firefox on any platform (other than mac) when dragging bookmarks in bookmarks menu. On mac I believe xcode has the described behavior for project files list.