Dear Gary,
Going through the process, I can see one source of confusion:
When the peak list is small you are asked to select a target and then you
select it. When it is large, you are asked if you really mean it before
you select the target list - that means that you have time to forget what
you were asked to do ;-). It might be better if the 'do you really mean
it' popup came up either before you were asked for the target, or after
you had selected the target. Do you think that might help, and would you
have a preference?
It is true that you will get problems if you clone a few thousand peaks
into the wrong target list. But then, any command that makes large changes
to a data set will cause trouble if you do it wrong (just think of
'\rm -rf *'). It is hard to see how the program can protect the users from
this eventuality.
Yours,
Rasmus
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Dr. Rasmus H. Fogh Email: [log in to unmask]
Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge,
80 Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1GA, UK. FAX (01223)766002
On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, gary thompson wrote:
> Dear All
> >Dear All
> >I am using the current peak lists to clone peaks from one list into
> another. However, the clone process appears to be hanging (the whole
> python system is not hung but cancel >cloning comes up on the button and
> then nothing seems to happen) help!
> >
> >another couple of comments / questions
> >
> >0. the ui is a bit painful it took several attempts to work out what was
> going on, what with semi modal dialog boxes appearing saying that I had not
> selected anything etc a small >dialog box with two lists and start
> cloning/cancel button would seem more obvious to me at least...
> >1. as the clone operation happens in the background do I have to be careful
> not to change the peak list i am cloning from e.g. what would happen if I
> deleted it....
> >
> >
> >regards
> >gary
>
> Now I have found out what is going on and it was a human interface problem
>
> for the record you have to do the following
>
> 1. click on a list to clone
> 2. click clone peaks
> 3. a dialog comes up saying 'please select a destination' [OK]
> 4. you click ok
> 5. if you have lots of peaks a second dialog comes up saying copy will
> duplicate xxxx peaks. this may take some time. [OK] [cancel]
> 6. clone peaks changes to a blue button with 'cancel cloning' (note you
> haven't started cloning yet though ...)
> 7. then you have to pick a peak list from original peak list [woe betide you
> if you click badly and get the wrong peak list... you will trash it and have
> to start again] or pick 'cancel cloning' button
>
> sorry the developers may shoot me, but this design is just not very
> unintuitive
>
>
> regards
> gary
>
> (n.b. it has taken me about 3 - 4 hours to work out where I was going wrong
> here)
>
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