I am completely against asking editor implementers to do smart stuff when the user opens an empty file. A no go for me.
What I think makes sense is to invoke a better wizard when the user creates a new (basic) file. We could add a new attribute to the newWizards extension point so that we can determine a better wizard based on the file extension.
Dani
From: Mickael Istria <mistria@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: User Interface Architecture Working Group <ui-best-practices-working-group@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 20.04.2017 07:26
Subject: [ui-best-practices-working-group] Should editor show new wizard for empty files?
Sent by: ui-best-practices-working-group-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
Hi,
I'd like to discuss a UX proposal. If this is perceived as a good idea, then we could plan putting it in some guidelines and adopting it in Platform to lead by example. But first, let's discuss it.
Similarly to the Import and many other places in the IDE, we can probably try to find alternatives to the typical workflow of user immediately facing several dozen of options for a basic task such as creating a file.
Current user stories:
- as a end-user, I create a file with File > New > FIle (basic file) or open an empty file, it opens in the proper editor according to file name. Expected: some edition assistance to initiate page. Got nothing (Blank page syndrome)
The suggestion is:
- as a end-user, I create a file with File > New > File (basic file) or open an empty file, it opens in the proper editor according to file name Got: editor open and showing the New wizard(s) for the current file. The has all possible values pre-set according
to the file and project specifics. In case of Java, it could be the selection wizard showing some of the possible nodes to initiate Java files (new Class, new Interface...).
I think this workflow would seem simpler for some users, as it mimics a more typical workflow of text editors, and allows to keep the power of IDE wizards without enforcing their usage too early.
I don't see any technical challenge in implementing this. This could be implemented per editor, I don't think Platform has to introduce new framework or extension points to get started with that. Maybe at some point we'd like to implement a content-type->newWizard
registry in Platform for that, but it's not a prerequisite to get started.
What do you think about this proposal? Should we make it a recommendation "In case editor opens on an empty file, automatically open the best New Wizard(s) to initiate this file"?
Cheers,
--
Mickael Istria
Eclipse developer for Red Hat Developers
My blog -
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