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List:       lyx-devel
Subject:    Proposal for UI enhancement: ticket #1624
From:       Andreas Nicolai <andreas.nicolai () gmx ! net>
Date:       2019-09-24 14:19:48
Message-ID: 059d1d15-51f2-47ec-4acf-5eef0f4863db () gmx ! net
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Hi and hello everyone,

first of all, I'm a great fan of Lyx and I use it for my productive work
since many years! Thanks for all the work you've put into.

One feature I am missing for some time already is discussed in ticket
https://www.lyx.org/trac/ticket/1624

It is about streamlining the "cross-reference" workflow.

When writing a document often you think about referencing a
section/table/image, but haven't created a label there yet. So the
workflow right now involves:

- click on "create reference" button
- in dialog get dissappointed: no desired label yet -> close dialog
- lookup section/image/table (usually involves a lot of scrolling)
- click on the right spot
- click on the "create label" button (or use shortcut)
- enter/adjust label name
- scroll back to insert position
- re-open dialog for inserting cross reference
- look-up and select label in dialog and finally create cross-reference


I would like to contribute an improvement on this workflow:

Proposed improvement:

- open cross-reference dialog
- select section/subsection/image/table etc.
- if label exists already, choose this label -> otherwise create a new label
- create cross-reference


UI design/implementation ideas:

1. Button and sub-dialog approach:
- add a button on the dialog "Create label"
- sub-dialog opens and allows selecting existing
sections/subections/images/tables in a tree-view or filtered list-view
(with combo-box filter)
- if a label exists for this section -> close dialog using button
"Select label"
- if no such label exist, enter/adjust suggested label name in line edit
-> close dialog using button "Create and select"-button
- in cross-reference dialog update list of labels and select newly
created/selected label
- create cross-reference as before


2. "switch selection list"-appraoch:
This facilitates also the approach when users are not 100% sure which
section to reference right now or when the choosen labels are not 100%
clear in what they describe. In such cases the document structure and
section captions can be a better way to select labels.

Idea: the cross-reference dialog has two selection modes:
a) as before, a groupable, filter-able list of existing labels
b) a groupable list of all existing sections/subsections/images/tables,
with highlighting (bold-face) for all list items that have already
labels defined

User can switch between both views via
toggle-button/radio-button...Toolbox-Window..?

When in mode b), user can click on a list view item.

If it has already a label, the user can continue as in the current
functionality. The label text is shown in a line edit below the list
view (that is read-only in this case).

If the selected item does not yet have a label associated, the read-only
line edit becomes enabled, a default label text is composed (as in the
"create label" dialog) and the button: create-label is enabled.

User can click on the create label button and after a uniqueness check,
the label is created in the respective section, image, table. The list
view is then updated and the item with the newly created label (now also
in bold-face) is selected. Then continue as above.


What would be your favourite design? I personally like variant 2)
better, but the first one is less intrusive (I wouldn't have to change
as much existing code as for variant 2). But then again, besides a
little reorganisation in ui/CreateRef.ui, it is probably not much to change.


What are your thoughts?

Right now I'm still investigating the code and trying to figure out how
to modify the buffer correctly.

Bye,
Andreas

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