Create Entries Beta: use field w/ autocompletion and browser for moods (like for tags)

[ninetydegrees]

Title:
Create Entries Beta: use field w/ autocompletion and browser for moods (like for tags)

Area:
entries

Summary:
Scrolling down the very long mood menu to pick one is not my favorite thing to do. I'd rather have the same system we have for tags: one field with autocompletion where you could also enter whatever (which would get rid of the awkward 'custom mood' field) and a browse button to load a mood browser.

Description:
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Poll #13096 Create Entries Beta: use field w/ autocompletion and browser for moods (like for tags)

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45

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This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
18 (40.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
5 (11.1%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
3 (6.7%)

(I have no opinion)
19 (42.2%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[swaldman]

I don't have a problem with this in principle, but just wanted to note that we'd still need some way of selecting what icon to use with a "custom mood".

[montuos]

I wondered about that myself, and went over to the Create Entries page, where I discovered that...I don't see how we can currently do that anymore anyway! Am I missing something there, or do we need to write up a suggestion to put that ability back in?

[poulpette]

the ability is there, in the 'currents' section. It might be collapsed by default?

[montuos]

Ok, I'll blame that comment on 3:00am and no sleep yet. No; that's not a section I have collapsed.

[poulpette]

Same for me. Maybe un-pair the icon picker and the text? icons could either be selected manually or attributed automatically if the icon keyword match one in the mood list? Maybe, typing one existing tag would set it to the mood icon, and adding more text, like an other 'tag', would allow for the custom text?

[ninetydegrees]

Hadn't thought of that. What if you could enter whatever then still click on browse to pick the icon you want to associate it with?

[cheyinka]

But then I think I'd expect using the mood browser to overwrite what I'd typed in, and vice versa. Having autocompletion would be nice, but I do use custom moods and pick 'standard' moods to have as the icon fairly often and would really hate to lose that.

A check box, maybe? That way you could have the angry icon and the text "happy" even though right now that's not possible (if your custom mood matches something, it's the same as picking from the dropdown), or the angry icon and the text "really exceptionally angry" or whatever.

[montuos]

How about if, once you've selected a mood, the entered text were displayed beside the icon when it doesn't match, the way you currently see just the icon, so you could have WYSIWYG confirmation of what will actually post?

[cheyinka]

Do you think the checkbox for "custom mood" or "custom mood text" or something would be more confusing than having the text show up in case of a mismatch? (Honest question - it seems like it'd be less, but I think someone who customarily mixes and matches moods and icons is probably not the best person to answer "what will confuse J. Random User"!)

[montuos]

• Inexperienced users really, truly need WYSIWYG; that's why we have so many WYSIWYG options.
• In this case, even experienced users demonstrably need WYSIWYG, given what you noted about matching mood text overriding selecting a different mood icon.
• I feel that having a checkbox to be able to select a mood icon for custom or conflicting text is adding an extra step to simply doing it.

The more I think about it, the more I think that what I'd really want is to type in the text exactly the same way we do for tags as per the original suggestion (and definitely including the part where you type a space to get the entire list to select from), and then where the appropriate icon currently displays, the entered/selected text shows up beside it, and then if you want to you can click the mood icon to change it, or click the highlighted/outlined/otherwise-obvious space where it isn't to select one for iconless custom text. Simple and unobtrusive, but does everything you need.

[ninetydegrees]

Hmm. I like the idea of clicking on the icon to change it. I'm not sure how we can make it obvious, though. But then the current system isn't explicit either.
Would it be possible (and useful) to have 'browse' change to 'change icon' if the mood isn't a pre-defined one? I have no idea whether this kind of detection is possible (and hard to implement).

[montuos]

As far as making it obvious goes, I was thinking in terms of Create Entries Beta: outline icon on hover, plus whatever else is already done to make it obvious when you can change a user icon. Parallel construction/method, and all that.

And, oh, hey! I just finally realized that when you do a custom mood the Create Entries Beta already already does pretty much what I described, except for being able to click directly on the icon to change it! *dopeslaps self*

I do think it would be better to keep your proposed button as "browse" rather than "change", though, if only for the people who choose more by images than words.

[turlough]

I agree. And since all the suggested methods so far here in the comments would make that process very much more complicated than it is now I voted against it.

[ciaan]

I like the idea of autocomplete, so long as we can also browse all the images/standard titles, and can still select to make our own text.

[marahmarie]

No, because I don't know my mood keywords (or any keywords for anything) by heart and never will. Considering I need a list to keep track of my lists, that I have to go read my tags page to know what my tags on certain subjects actually are, and that I'm so forgetful I almost left for work in my pajama pants the other day - and this is the short list of some of my memory problems - there is no way I could deal with what it is that's being suggested (if I could only remember now what it was).

[ninetydegrees]

Just in case it wasn't obvious : you could still pick a mood on the list in the mood browser (accessible via a 'browse' button instead of a drop-down menu). You can totally find this far less practical but I don't think what I suggested implied you had to know keywords by heart. I don't know them either.

[marahmarie]

Yeah, I just get all like 'panic attack, deep breath' when I think of having to recall anything in a longish list. But if the mood icons themselves are still viewable (in other words, if I can bypass this idea once implemented to use another, more visual option) then I'm all for it.

(What got me most was my brief initial mis-understandiong of the OP to mean user icons being searched for this way, and instead of having a visual option, but then I realized any situation like that would freak me out.)