[Suggestions] All actions menu

[BetterRed]

Now that I better understand its intent, I'm using All actions as my secondary navigation tool - keyboard shortcuts being the primary.

Q. Are the outer branch range names fixed or are they determined by how many.

When I had 10 plugins installed I had a branch node "BR Menu - View Manager" with 10 leaf nodes, when I removed a plugin the branch node disappeared and I have 9 leaf nodes in the outer menu. I'd rather have a branch node, even if it only has one leaf**.

Incidentally I had to restart calibre to have the removed plugin disappear from the All actions Plugins menu. Aside: removing a plugin should offer a restart, like a adding a plugin does… IMO.

Anyway, some suggestions

• Use '→' rather than '-' in the outer branch names e.g. Add books→Choose library
  
  I have to remind myself that they not connected actions - i.e. 'Add books - Choose library' does not mean choose the library to which books will be added.
• Include all the Preference panels as per the lower section of the Preferences drop down menu:
  
  
• Add another section - Libraries.

BR

** ATSCS - Acute Topographical Spatial Consistency Syndrome

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Q. Are the outer branch range names fixed or are they determined by how many.

It separates the two categories into groups of at most 10 items. I'm not going to make that number a setting. I'm open to not expanding a group if there aren't 10 items (only "Plugins" could fall here), but I'd want to hear from other people about it. There are arguments for both methods.

Anyway, some suggestions

• Use '→' rather than '-' in the outer branch names e.g. Add books→Choose library
  
  I have to remind myself that they not connected actions - i.e. 'Add books - Choose library' does not mean choose the library to which books will be added.

There are other places in calibre that use '-' as the separator, for example tag browser partitioning. For me, '→' is less intuitive than '-' because the arrow implies causality.

• Include all the Preference panels as per the lower section of the Preferences drop down menu:

It already does that in the menu. Example: clicking on/selecting "Preferences" here:



Gives you this:


"All actions" gives you the menu for the action if it has one, otherwise the dialog. And yes, having "Preferences", "Toolbars", and "Shortcuts" on the outer menu isn't consistent, but I like them there.

• Add another section - Libraries.

Wouldn't this be more-or-less the same thing you get by using "Choose library"?





The above notwithstanding, I certainly won't object if someone wants to change how All actions works and Kovid accepts the changes.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by chaley

It separates the two categories into groups of at most 10 items. I'm not going to make that number a setting. I'm open to not expanding a group if there aren't 10 items (only "Plugins" could fall here), but I'd want to hear from other people about it. There are arguments for both methods.

The Tag browser partitioning uses first letter. In this instance that would be inappropriate because there are fewer items, the values are known, and they are relatively static; I would much prefer first letter ranges so that all the 'C's etc are in the same group, e.g. for English

A - B
C - E
F - O
P - S
T - Z

There are other places in calibre that use '-' as the separator, for example tag browser partitioning. For me, '→' is less intuitive than '-' because the arrow implies causality.

My suggestion to use first letter ranges would resolve this issue.

Re plugins, this is what I have right now:



If I add a plugin that list will collapse to this,



If I then remove it will expand again - I recognise it's a border line case, and that most user will have more than 9 plugins installed, but for the minimalists on on the border it is irritating. Maybe a Tweak could be provided to prevent that happening, e.g.

Collapse AA's list of plugins if there are more than N plugins.

I'd set N to 1.

It already does that in the menu. clicking on/selecting "Preferences"

"All actions" gives you the menu for the action if it has one, otherwise the dialog. And yes, having "Preferences", "Toolbars", and "Shortcuts" on the outer menu isn't consistent, but I like them there.

That's what threw me. So, in my mind's eye I'll relabel that section as chaley's tool-belt

Wouldn't this be more-or-less the same thing you get by using "Choose library"?

More or less, as in select Choose library, and if the library one wants isn't in Choose library's shortlist, select Quick switch.

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Breaking news: I removed the option to put the AA button in the status bar (which I didn't use). When I use my Ctrl+Alt+A shortcut now, AA pops up in the top right corner rather than the bottom left corner… which I much prefer. The submenus don't flyout backwards, and notifications don't pop-over the AA menu.

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

The Tag browser partitioning uses first letter. In this instance that would be inappropriate because there are fewer items, the values are known, and they are relatively static; I would much prefer first letter ranges so that all the 'C's etc are in the same group, e.g. for English

A - B
C - E
F - O
P - S
T - Z

The tag browser already uses first letter ranges if you ask it to. Example:


If also provides nearly-fixed-size ranges, as in:


The reason for "nearly" is hierarchical items. Those can't be separated so it splits after them, making the partition size value a minimum.

When partitioning in this manner the label is set by a template in Tweaks. You could use an arrow instead of a dash if you want. The above is generated with this tweak value:

categories_collapsed_name_template = '{first.sort:substr(0,4)} - {last.sort:substr(0,4)}'

Re plugins, this is what I have right now:

If I add a plugin that list will collapse to this,

If I then remove it will expand again - I recognise it's a border line case, and that most user will have more than 9 plugins installed, but for the minimalists on on the border it is irritating. Maybe a Tweak could be provided to prevent that happening, e.g.

Collapse AA's list of plugins if there are more than N plugins.

I'd set N to 1.

I already said I won't add an option to control the partition size.

If more people than you care then I will look at always collapsing even if the count is less than the partition size. That would be equivalent to you setting N to 1.

[chaley]

After reflection, I think first letter ranges are better than fixed-size partitions.

Change is in calibre source.

[BetterRed]

Curious: How are the ranges determined considering Interface language issues - reference to an imported library or code will be fine. I recall wrestling with such issues on VAX/VMS 40+ years ago, I think we ended up rolling our own for Latin and Cyrillic only.

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Curious: How are the ranges determined considering Interface language issues - reference to an imported library or code will be fine. I recall wrestling with such issues on VAX/VMS 40+ years ago, I think we ended up rolling our own for Latin and Cyrillic only.

BR

The list of actions is first sorted by display name, which can be translated. The sort takes language/locale into consideration. The actions are then grouped together by translated first letter. The ranges are then built by combining first letters together until the count in the group exceeds the arbitrary value of IIRC 7. Given that we know the total action count is at most in the hundreds, we don't need to make the group size dynamic.