Can't download to COBALT

[nick]

Appreciate the feedback, thanks.

[nick]

Ah, so Computers on the left is like a SmartDiveLog ... maybe it should be listed under that grouping as a pre-defined dive logs, with a distinctive logo. I thought the panel on the left was a list of categories of things to be displayed, but other than the first grouping ("Library"), those are just filters as you say. There really are two types of things on the left: the items in the Library and various Dives which can be viewed via DiveLogs. The functionality makes sense now even if it is not obvious.

Yus, exactly like a smart dive log (internally it's essentially just Computer = 'Whatever'). I was intending them to be there with a separate logo etc, which is what they have.

I see your point about Library vs the rest, but all of the views/sections of MacDive are under Library, while the smart logs are everything else. (Except Recently Imported I guess).

I like having the computers, divers, etc split up into their own quick filters - I find them very convenient to use personally. But maybe there's a way to make it more obvious that they are filters and not subsections.

Again, it makes sense, but is not obvious. If it were listed as a pre-defined DiveLog, it would be intuitive.

Kind of - but at the same time, it's nice that once you add your name to a dive that it just magically turns up. Same with Countries. But as I mentioned, Divers needed an overhaul anyway, which has been done.

There is no keyboard shortcut for New Smart Divelog (Command-D) would work, as there is for New Dive.

Doh. I'll add one. Is Command + Option + Shift + J suitable?

Not intuitive as it is, since "Divers" are listed like other items in the Library on the left panel. If there was no separate grouping of divers on the left, but the diver-specific filters appeared under the "DiveLogs" section on the left, I would not have been confused. The ability to enter divers as you note below will help. But then, I would hope to be able to Add divers by clicking on the word "Divers" and Edit or Delete a specific diver by (right) clicking on that diver (as we can now with DiveLogs).

Again some of this stuff is supposed to be "magic". IE, you don't care about where the data is entered or how it is created, they just turn up to provide you a convenience. You don't need to interact with it, it just is.

You sound like a bit more of a power user, so I understand where you're coming from. But also try and think of it in terms of someone much less power-usery and see if that helps "explain" it ?

At any rate - fixing up the "New" shortcut to work in a context based way will hopefully help a little. There are plenty of things that can be enhanced.

Not obvious! It should probably also be enterable on the "General" tab when editing a dive itself, along with other site-specific info.

This I'll have to disagree with. Under a Dive, you simply add a site. If you want to edit that site, you edit it via sites - I think this is perfectly reasonable and typical. It doesn't make sense to me to edit the water type on a per-dive basis - the water at the site doesn't change in that way, and you shouldn't have to think about it at all after you've edited it.

It may make sense to display it as a convenience, but I don't think editing it via a dive makes sense. Same with gear - you edit gear under gear. I like to keep those distinct entities separate.

It is certainly possible to have Command-N create a pop-up that works for multiple entry. The dialog box could have a button for "Done" and another for "Add another dive" (plus "Cancel").

Of course it's possible - as I mentioned earlier, MacDive is really not geared towards, or optimised for, manual log entry. No, that's not a great thing. But there are a million other things that have to take priority, and unfortunately it will have to wait until I've finished all of those!

Not sure I'd agree, but that's personal preference. Eliminating obscurity is always good, so automatically scrolling to the new dive would help a lot.

I've played with this before - unfortunately it gets absurdly complex given the sort order of dives and becomes a nightmare to get right. I was wasting too much time on it, so I stopped.

Don't get me wrong - for the most part I agree with you that manually entering dives is a terrible experience. But again the million other requests take priority.

Doh! I should have tried that! I see you also have the conventional up/down arrow to indicate sorting order. Nice.

Yup, I guess the issue is that when I add new columns I just sort of throw them on the end of a list of columns, so they tend to appear in a bit of a random order. Just another one of those things that perhaps I assumed was more intuitive than it was (most Mac apps you can reorder the columns, I think).

Another idea would be if you click the left-most star, it undoes it. Is is how Lightroom works, even on Mac, for example. Obvious user interface.

Well, Adobe aren't exactly known for following convention. I would prefer to leave the rating column as it is - it's a standard control with no modification, so it should work the same way as any rating control (that hasn't been modified).

Yeah, I agree it's not easy to come up with a perfect scheme. I suppose you could have column headings use two lines (though this may not be a standard Mac control/convention). Perhaps you could choose names like these: DMaster, DOperator, DType, Dive#, RDive#?

I think that would possibly make it more obscure to some people. I can definitely take the "Dive" off some of those - type, for example. But things like Divemaster, that's a standard term so it would make sense to leave it. "Master" would be weird. Will take a look at tidying this up.

Why? Because it's long, and shortening it doesn't differentiate one from another if they are the same brand for example (or two different computers of the same exact model). It was not obvious to me that this was not linked to the piece of gear. If it WERE linked to the gear (and perhaps if not), it would still be nice to be able to enter something like "Margo's Cobalt" under the gear description, and then have that be the (default) value for that column. As it is now, the column isn't very useful to me, so I will hide it.

There are a bunch of people who use this for things like "Divemasters Computer", "US Navy Tables", "Rented D6", etc. For those - you wouldn't necessarily want to go to the effort of creating a piece of gear and then setting a description as you may never want to use it again. So this is just a convenience thing that is defaulted to what you imported with.

I suppose I could add a "description" field and that field is used instead of Brand.Model, if it exists, for the "computer" field. That would be a bit obscure but it's actually quite an interesting idea.

Remember, my comments are those of a new user, who sees the user interface with fresh eyes.

Yup - I appreciate them, and I appreciate the time you've taken to write them all down. At the same time - please keep in mind that I only have so much spare time to spend on MacDive after a 50-hour work week, so some things have to take priority. And along the same lines, if you check the release notes for the past few patches you'll see that it's constantly improving. No, it's not perfect - but I try and make things better with each iteration.

Nothing wrong in principle, but I'm saying that a window title using the specific dive DIVE (e.g., date/time or globally unique dive number) rather than a dive SITE (which generally applies to multiple dives) would be more appropriate. When updating a single dive, you're really not changing the dive SITE as implied by the window title.

Ah, a fair point. I actually prefer the site personally - as I tend to bulk change a few things (the operator, DM, whatever) and then I individually fill out things like vis or notes. When I'm doing that, I've found that I like having the site there as it describes the dive to me in terms of what it was better than just a time.

Dive 45 or "DD/MM/YYYY HH::MM::SS" I find harder to associate with the actual dive.

And when there are multiple "items" selected, those are actually multiple DIVES, not "items" of other types.

True..

"Done" is not clunky, and appears on multiple other Mac windows. In most windows where you are changing something you see "Ok" and "Cancel" or sometimes "Apply" (with or without "Cancel") In fact, it seems to me that it's mostly Preferences-type panels that use only the close button. Other places more often use more explicit buttons. You could of course continue to allow people to press the red close button, even if a "Done" button existed. In some/many apps, closing the window after entering changes will ask for confirmation ("Keep changes?") before closing the window.

It just seems to me MacDive's UI is in a few places a little different from most standard Mac conventions.

Sorry about that.

Also, by the way, the column "Air Type" is not in alphabetical order in the list of columns I can choose to add. And, being really nit-picky, neither are "Air End", "Buddies", or "Diver".

I already fixed a few of these in the next patch. This is partly just hangover as internally they're called "Pressure Start" not "Air Start" etc.

The spirit of these comments is not to complain, only to provide another perspective, especially where I can point out things as a new user that are not obvious (to me). For you, everything in the user interface is familiar since you designed it. Usability is greatly enhanced when things are consistent and obvious and convenient.

Indeed, and again I appreciate the comments. I'll try and address as many of these as possible before the next update.

* I can probably look at modifying the default Computers listings to differentiate between multiple computers if they exist - can you send me your MacDive.sqlite file, so I have your data to work with/test?

Will send separately.

Cool! I'm not sure if having integration with the Contacts list as present is useful or not. I have thousands of contacts and only dive with very few of them.

Do you mean when you are auto completing a buddy name? Some find it useful, some don't. It was added by popular demand, so if you don't like it, you're in the minority!

[kenjacobs]

Ah, so Computers on the left is like a SmartDiveLog ... maybe it should be listed under that grouping as a pre-defined dive logs, with a distinctive logo. I thought the panel on the left was a list of categories of things to be displayed, but other than the first grouping ("Library"), those are just filters as you say. There really are two types of things on the left: the items in the Library and various Dives which can be viewed via DiveLogs. The functionality makes sense now even if it is not obvious.

Yes, exactly like a smart dive log (internally it's essentially just Computer = 'Whatever'). I was intending them to be there with a separate logo etc, which is what they have.

I see your point about Library vs the rest, but all of the views/sections of MacDive are under Library, while the smart logs are everything else. (Except Recently Imported I guess).

I like having the computers, divers, etc split up into their own quick filters - I find them very convenient to use personally. But maybe there's a way to make it more obvious that they are filters and not subsections.

Yeah, I think the automatically-generated filters/smart logs are great! Wouldn't change them at all. But, I think having all of them under one category (Divelogs) may make more sense. The logos on the left make it obvious they are based on the computer, diver or whatever. User-definted filters have a distinct logo from everything else. Simply by having the automatically-generated logs grouped together under the category divelogs simultaneously makes them easy to recognize as divelogs and makes them handy.

I think I'd also put "recently imported" under the Date grouping on the left, as opposed to under Library. It could go under Divelogs, but I see how the separate grouping of those separate "filters" makes sense and is intuitive (because of the calendar logo mostly).

On the other hand, given that argument about date-filters, then it also makes sense to keep automatically-generated filters based on Computers separately too!

Again, it makes sense, but is not obvious. If it were listed as a pre-defined DiveLog, it would be intuitive.

Kind of - but at the same time, it's nice that once you add your name to a dive that it just magically turns up. Same with Countries. But as I mentioned, Divers needed an overhaul anyway, which has been done.

I agree entirely about the automatically generated filters and that they just appear. It's only a question of where they appear. Your decision makes sense in this entire matter, especially once it is explained.
There is no keyboard shortcut for New Smart Divelog (Command-D) would work, as there is for New Dive.

Doh. I'll add one. Is Command + Option + Shift + J suitable?

A little ugly, if I may say so (or are you kidding?!). Perhaps Command+Shift+N?

Not intuitive as it is, since "Divers" are listed like other items in the Library on the left panel. If there was no separate grouping of divers on the left, but the diver-specific filters appeared under the "DiveLogs" section on the left, I would not have been confused. The ability to enter divers as you note below will help. But then, I would hope to be able to Add divers by clicking on the word "Divers" and Edit or Delete a specific diver by (right) clicking on that diver (as we can now with DiveLogs).

Again some of this stuff is supposed to be "magic". IE, you don't care about where the data is entered or how it is created, they just turn up to provide you a convenience. You don't need to interact with it, it just is.

None of my comments are about the automatic creation or how they work, just where they are displayed. But, the current system makes sense ... once it is explained!

You sound like a bit more of a power user, so I understand where you're coming from. But also try and think of it in terms of someone much less power-usery and see if that helps "explain" it ?

No, sort of the opposite. I'm thinking of things entirely as a newbie to the application, and seeing it as a person unfamiliar with the inner workings sees it. Also looking to find things to be consistent throughout the application, consistent with Mac UI standards, obvious and intuitive. As an example, you DO have a Cancel and OK button when adding a divelog, but not elsewhere. The UI for adding gear (or certifications or dive sites) seems to me especially non-obvious, and unlike anything in most other apps.

At any rate - fixing up the "New" shortcut to work in a context based way will hopefully help a little. There are plenty of things that can be enhanced.

Yup.

5. I didn't find a way to enter "Water Type".

Go to Sites. In thumbnail view, double click on a site. In list view, there's a column.

Not obvious! It should probably also be enterable on the "General" tab when editing a dive itself, along with other site-specific info.

This I'll have to disagree with. Under a Dive, you simply add a site. If you want to edit that site, you edit it via sites - I think this is perfectly reasonable and typical. It doesn't make sense to me to edit the water type on a per-dive basis - the water at the site doesn't change in that way, and you shouldn't have to think about it at all after you've edited it.

We agree to disagree. On the General tab I can change the country, location and site name. If I can change that, why would I not want to change the water type? Maybe it was mis-spelled? Maybe I forgot to enter it when defining the site, and I want to change it all at once for multiple dives at that site?

It may make sense to display it as a convenience, but I don't think editing it via a dive makes sense. Same with gear - you edit gear under gear. I like to keep those distinct entities separate.

Then, to be consistent, don't let the user change the country, location or site name on a dive either.

It is certainly possible to have Command-N create a pop-up that works for multiple entry. The dialog box could have a button for "Done" and another for "Add another dive" (plus "Cancel").

Of course it's possible - as I mentioned earlier, MacDive is really not geared towards, or optimised for, manual log entry. No, that's not a great thing. But there are a million other things that have to take priority, and unfortunately it will have to wait until I've finished all of those!

No doubt there are lots of things to do! And as you attract more and more users, you'll have more and more feedback. You hope!

Not sure I'd agree, but that's personal preference. Eliminating obscurity is always good, so automatically scrolling to the new dive would help a lot.

I've played with this before - unfortunately it gets absurdly complex given the sort order of dives and becomes a nightmare to get right. I was wasting too much time on it, so I stopped.

Don't get me wrong - for the most part I agree with you that manually entering dives is a terrible experience. But again the million other requests take priority.

I agree, this is low priority. Simply automagically scrolling to the new dive entry in the listing would be sufficient.

Doh! I should have tried that! I see you also have the conventional up/down arrow to indicate sorting order. Nice.

Yup, I guess the issue is that when I add new columns I just sort of throw them on the end of a list of columns, so they tend to appear in a bit of a random order. Just another one of those things that perhaps I assumed was more intuitive than it was (most Mac apps you can reorder the columns, I think).

Another idea would be if you click the left-most star, it undoes it. Is is how Lightroom works, even on Mac, for example. Obvious user interface.

Well, Adobe aren't exactly known for following convention. I would prefer to leave the rating column as it is - it's a standard control with no modification, so it should work the same way as any rating control (that hasn't been modified).

True enough. I didn't know about it, but iPhoto does work the same as MacDive.

Yeah, I agree it's not easy to come up with a perfect scheme. I suppose you could have column headings use two lines (though this may not be a standard Mac control/convention). Perhaps you could choose names like these: DMaster, DOperator, DType, Dive#, RDive#?

I think that would possibly make it more obscure to some people. I can definitely take the "Dive" off some of those - type, for example. But things like Divemaster, that's a standard term so it would make sense to leave it. "Master" would be weird. Will take a look at tidying this up.

Why? Because it's long, and shortening it doesn't differentiate one from another if they are the same brand for example (or two different computers of the same exact model). It was not obvious to me that this was not linked to the piece of gear. If it WERE linked to the gear (and perhaps if not), it would still be nice to be able to enter something like "Margo's Cobalt" under the gear description, and then have that be the (default) value for that column. As it is now, the column isn't very useful to me, so I will hide it.

There are a bunch of people who use this for things like "Divemasters Computer", "US Navy Tables", "Rented D6", etc. For those - you wouldn't necessarily want to go to the effort of creating a piece of gear and then setting a description as you may never want to use it again. So this is just a convenience thing that is defaulted to what you imported with.

I suppose I could add a "description" field and that field is used instead of Brand.Model, if it exists, for the "computer" field. That would be a bit obscure but it's actually quite an interesting idea.

Works for me!

Remember, my comments are those of a new user, who sees the user interface with fresh eyes.

Yup - I appreciate them, and I appreciate the time you've taken to write them all down. At the same time - please keep in mind that I only have so much spare time to spend on MacDive after a 50-hour work week, so some things have to take priority. And along the same lines, if you check the release notes for the past few patches you'll see that it's constantly improving. No, it's not perfect - but I try and make things better with each iteration.

Happy to add my comments. I do support what you're doing, which is why I immediately paid for the app. Unlike with a lot of open source software, which you can use without paying, it makes sense to support an individual who puts in the effort to do something novel.

Nothing wrong in principle, but I'm saying that a window title using the specific dive DIVE (e.g., date/time or globally unique dive number) rather than a dive SITE (which generally applies to multiple dives) would be more appropriate. When updating a single dive, you're really not changing the dive SITE as implied by the window title.

Ah, a fair point. I actually prefer the site personally - as I tend to bulk change a few things (the operator, DM, whatever) and then I individually fill out things like vis or notes. When I'm doing that, I've found that I like having the site there as it describes the dive to me in terms of what it was better than just a time.

Dive 45 or "DD/MM/YYYY HH::MM::SS" I find harder to associate with the actual dive.

Perhaps. I think of my dives by date first, then other things. Compromise: when a single dive is selected, include both the date and dive site in the title bar of the window?

And when there are multiple "items" selected, those are actually multiple DIVES, not "items" of other types.

True..

"Done" is not clunky, and appears on multiple other Mac windows. In most windows where you are changing something you see "Ok" and "Cancel" or sometimes "Apply" (with or without "Cancel") In fact, it seems to me that it's mostly Preferences-type panels that use only the close button. Other places more often use more explicit buttons. You could of course continue to allow people to press the red close button, even if a "Done" button existed. In some/many apps, closing the window after entering changes will ask for confirmation ("Keep changes?") before closing the window.

It just seems to me MacDive's UI is in a few places a little different from most standard Mac conventions.

Sorry about that.

No need to apologize. Software is a creative thing. People's opinions differ. However, consistency in a UI is important, so having such buttons as Done and Cancel where appropriate makes sense (just like when creating a divelog!).

Also, by the way, the column "Air Type" is not in alphabetical order in the list of columns I can choose to add. And, being really nit-picky, neither are "Air End", "Buddies", or "Diver".

I already fixed a few of these in the next patch. This is partly just hangover as internally they're called "Pressure Start" not "Air Start" etc.

The spirit of these comments is not to complain, only to provide another perspective, especially where I can point out things as a new user that are not obvious (to me). For you, everything in the user interface is familiar since you designed it. Usability is greatly enhanced when things are consistent and obvious and convenient.

Indeed, and again I appreciate the comments. I'll try and address as many of these as possible before the next update.

You're welcome.

* I can probably look at modifying the default Computers listings to differentiate between multiple computers if they exist - can you send me your MacDive.sqlite file, so I have your data to work with/test?

Will send separately.

Cool! I'm not sure if having integration with the Contacts list as present is useful or not. I have thousands of contacts and only dive with very few of them.

Do you mean when you are auto completing a buddy name? Some find it useful, some don't. It was added by popular demand, so if you don't like it, you're in the minority!

Yup ... I'm not sure where it is a good thing or not, but I'm ok with it as is, as I dive mostly with my wife and not random buddies chosen from my contact list.

[nick]

Not sure what's happened, but this is getting a bit hard to decipher - quoting seems broken or something.

I'll address what I can from the stuff you've mentioned already for the next patch, and we'll go from there.

[kenjacobs]

Perfect, thanks!