[added] Section Name Sort capability

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William-Dyer
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Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:05 pm

[added] Section Name Sort capability

Post by William-Dyer »

In V7.0.9 (6695) it appears that there is no ability to programmatically sort section names within a notebook.

My current application is the organization and management of property changes (landscaping etc.) for the homeowners association in which I reside. There is a section for each home. Currently there are 235 sections within the notebook with each section being named the home's street address. This will increase up to about 2000 sections as the development construction completes. Each Section (home address) has that home's property change requests and approvals etc. being the notes within the section. There are already over a 1000 notes across the 235 sections.

MyInfo provides the ability to sort the notes within a single section (via sort siblings once) but not apparently the sections. The ability to sort the section names is critical as a new section has to be added whenever a new home is completed which is several each month. The "new section' button is at the right end of the section tabs which takes a significant number of mouse clicks to reach. My workaround to spending a lot of time clicking to the end of the section tabs is to have the "New Section" command on the toolbar which allows me to create and access the new section quickly and rename it to the new home's address. However, the new section is still at the end of the tabs and not in the list by address as it needs to be. Dragging the new section across hundreds of sections to the correct location is impactable at best.

Am I missing a command/feature somewhere?
Does anyone know of a clean way to automate the section name sort?
Can the "add section" button be fixed at the start of the tabs (left end) instead of the end of the tabs (right end)?
What are the plans to have a "sort sections" capability (with ascending, descending sequence capability) within MyInfo?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

William
Telesto
Posts: 3377
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 5:32 pm

Post by Telesto »

It's currently not possible to sort sections, as far I know. I assume this could be implemented. It's not especially needed to click on the + button to add a section.

Right Click Context menu does contain it too. It currently add a new tab at the end.. I would prefer next to select tab if the context menu being used.

If you pin notebooks drop down, will have list of sections (vertical instead of horizontal). Might be useful.

Is there actually a necessity to have everything in sections (and not across databases). I personally - a tester - never considered using 250 sections. Would say 25 sections tops and even that's already pretty cumbersome to manage. So you're case/workflow is likely not taking into account.

I assume a section filter to be useful too. And maybe a database filter (because if split across multiple databases you have a lot to search for)

Let's wait for Petk0
William-Dyer
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:05 pm

Post by William-Dyer »

Hello and thanks for your reply.

Yes, I know about the context menu section add capability. Any current method of adding a section puts the new section at the end of the currently established sections - which is a huge issue if no section sort capability exists. Currently you have to drag a section to the desired location in the section tree (either horizontal in the tabs or vertically under the notebook in the notebook pane)

If I used individual notebooks rather than sections I would have to navigate 235 notebooks currently and 2000 notebooks in the near future, so sections are the better organizational approach and were carefully considered prior to taking the approach. I find historical requests and results by scrolling the notebook navigation pane list of sections to the desired home's section. Navigating across the tabs is essentially useless to me due the sheer number of them, the tabs being non-scrollable, and requiring a click to navigate to those tabs off-screen.

The challenge is that there are going to be 2000 homes each of which may have a variable number of change requests. I need to keep a home-level history of requests and actions taken (approve/deny). The actual amount of total hard-disk space is trivial in reality as the requests and comments have a small disk occupancy requirement. I.E. the myinfo database file will not be over-large.

My desired capability (if I could wave a magic wand) would be a section sort (ascending/descending) capability and the option to fix the add section button location at the left end of the tab list with the newly created section tab being at the front of the tab list.

William
Telesto
Posts: 3377
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 5:32 pm

Post by Telesto »

William-Dyer wrote: Sun Dec 27, 2020 8:15 pm My desired capability (if I could wave a magic wand) would be a section sort (ascending/descending) capability and the option to fix the add section button location at the left end of the tab list with the newly created section tab being at the front of the tab list.
Both a reasonable requests, IMHO

Still thinking would be come done to make the amount of notebooks/sections more manageable. I personally have the notebooks panel attached and number of those have expanded sections. For me the scrollbar becomes already annoying. So not even thinking about 2000 notebooks & 250 sections.

So brainstorming a bit:
(A) Split the notebooks sections off in to a separate panel and not in the notebook list itself. Showing all sections of one notebook already creates big list. Downside is of course not being able to have multiple notebooks expanded at the same time. Except if both options are possible.
(B) A quick filter could be practical to find a certain notebook/ section faster. Which brings forward the notebook you're searching for
(C) Another option would be to put databases in (virtual) folders inside MyInfo (so not talking about save location). Now all of them are listed in one big list. Personally have certain notebooks listed, but there are less heavily used. I use the notebook bar more as quick access kind of thing (and lazy person who does remove unused stuff often)
(D) Hiding the horizontal tabs (as those are not used anyhow, and require space); bit more side kick
(E) Sub-sections maybe (talked about this with Petko in the past. If I recall correctly similar to OneNote 2016)
William-Dyer
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:05 pm

Post by William-Dyer »

Hello and thanks for the reply - hope you had a healthy and enjoyable holiday season.
to clarify---
The project will have an aggregate of approaching 2000 individual grouping of notes. Each grouping represents a single home/lot "Home"
Each home currently has an average of 3 notes, but each individual home has a varying number of notes. Currently about 800 homes in total after the first 10 month of project life..
Over time the total number of notes will grow and likely significantly. I expect an average of 2 notes added per home per year .
Homes could be sections =or= notebooks, but having 2000 notebooks means 2000 real disk files rather than one (if 2000 sections).

Pros and cons...
>2000 notebooks is significantly more hard disk overhead and space than sections. I judge that sections is the better approach.
>Using an individual notebook for each home will absolutely require use of the notebooks pane scrolling and/or search to access an individual home.
>Using sections means the notebook has 2000 sections listed in the notebook pane but at least they could be in home address order. Same scrolling and/or search effort as notebooks
>Using sections would mean I would lose the entire project data if the single notebook failed (YES I do have multiple backups so this is a minor consideration) where individual notebooks would limit data loss to the notebook involved.

Alternatives
1. I could have a single section with all of the home's notes within the single section. That would mean thousands of notes in the section but the could be named as "homename request-date requestorname request title requestapproval" so that they could be program sorted and end up in a workable sequence. For example "113 Coopers Hawk 2021-01-01 Jones fence approved". This does work and would not likely approach the currently stated program limits for many years. Note naming is currently done for each note within the home's section already so that each note self-identifies in full.

2. Use an individual notebook for each home. Requires 2000 notebooks. Increased disk space and access overhead. Reduced risk of overall data loss if notebook data corrupted. Increased individual home access time due to opening/closing notebooks and locating the proper notebook.

3. Use one notebook with individual section for each home's notes. Requires 2000 sections which is somewhat cumbersome without section level sort feature available.

Concusion
Use one notebook with a section for each home provides the best accessibility and disk access/overhead for the current myinfo program state. Just need the additional sorting capabilities to make life a lot easier and more effective.
Petko
MyInfo Support
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Joined: Sun Jul 25, 2004 4:33 pm
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Post by Petko »

Just to assure you, sorting sections alphabetically will be back soon!

I am also considering adding a New Section to the Right context menu item like in Google Chrome. It makes sense to me..
William-Dyer
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:05 pm

Post by William-Dyer »

Hello Petko,

Thanks for the assurance that section sorting is coming soon!!!

Please also seriously consider fixing the add section "+" button to the left end of the section tabs bar rather than the right end (or make the end a user selectable option) so that it is always readily available and easy to access as well as locating the newly created section at the left end of existing sections - if not at the cursor point in the section tabs at the time of new section activation.

Would be more than happy to help test and QA. I have multiple notebooks with up to several hundred sections and over 1000 notes in the sections.

William
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