Friends groups mass edit

[wide_worlds_joy]

Title:
Friends groups mass edit

Area:
Custom groups

Summary:
A way to mass edit friends, groups they are in and keep it straight

Description:
I noticed the other night when I was trying to redo my filters that there was something missing from the "Edit Circle" page. That's the ability to add/subtract them from specific filters.

You had to go to that user's description page to actually change the groups they were in, or go to the individual filters and add or subtract them from there.

I don't know about you, but I find that to be a couple steps too many, and a bother to boot. I don't always remember a person from one page to another.

So my suggestion is this: First, add a column with a 16x16 or 30x30 copy of their default icon. This will show me quickly who I am dealing with without having to remember their name. Then also on that user "line", possibly between it and the next user, have a section for all the filters you have with tick boxes to customize the groups they are in. That way when updating a filter, or creating a new one, it will be relatively easy to glance at the icon, know who you are dealing with, tick a box and then hit "save". If you make one filter, you can still do it from the edit groups page, and if you add a user, you can still edit those groups from their description. But this way you can see your ENTIRE circle, edit the access/subscription AND filters all at once.

That's my suggestion.

Poll #4416 Friends groups mass edit

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 26

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
9 (34.6%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
5 (19.2%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (3.8%)

(I have no opinion)
10 (38.5%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (3.8%)

Comments

[thorfinn]

That's a potentially *very big* page. 500 IDs x 20 filters = 10000 table cells.

Splitting the edit screen into a certain maximum number of IDs is not bad, but ordering can be tricky, and then it can be just as hard to find the persons you want to edit.

For someone with only a few filters the table works too, but get beyond 5-6 filters and you're starting to have a very wide table, which is going to look pretty bad and start to be unmanageable on anything more than a large screen.

Checkboxes are also actually quite hard to use.

I fully support the suggestion that there needs to be better methods for handling this, but quite a bit of deeper UX thought and testing is required.

I have no specific good thoughts right at this moment, unfortunately, and this is also not a perfectly solved problem as far as I've seen.

[denise]

Yeah, I really really want to redo filter management, but every single UX designer we've had working with us takes one look at it and whimpers.

[wide_worlds_joy]

Then maybe a dynamic script that works like the "Quick Edit" on Wordpress?

They basically have a set of rows that have basic info on the post you are editing. One of the selections if you hover over an area is "quick edit". Clicking that will pull up a dynamic set of fields that will allow you to do t hings like change the slug, add categories, add keywords and so on, but only on that post. When you hit "save" which is also in that field, it goes back to just being a listing of posts.

Something like that would make it so that the only person you are looking at and changing is the one you are working with.

And no, I have no clue how they do it. Probably a PHP thing.

[thorfinn]

I'm not surprised to hear that at all... m*n dataset manipulation is a Hard Problem™. :-/

[msilverstar]

Maybe some of the new AJAX tools will help.

[matgb]

Yup. I've tried several different mockup ideas, and every one falls over at it.

It definitely needsw work, I hate hate hate the current filter management pages, especially the way the lists of people are displayed within those horrid scrollboxes, no good at all once you get past a certain number of subscriptions and/or granted access.

[matgb]

Reading back through, this is basically a repeat suggestion for Bug 2200 – Improve UI for Filter Management, with a few tweaks.

Given that was my suggestion, I have some ideas in my head, which includes using scripts or similar to collapse/expand sections and columns. I like the idea of including the default pick alongside the username, but need to work on some more thoughts.

Essentially, if anyone reading this one has ideas or wants to help me build a mockup, that'd be grand.

[wide_worlds_joy]

Please? I'd love to see it.

[zvi]

It is already terrible for me to try to use the edit circle page, and the circle page is greatly improved from LJ and handles additional complexity. This proposal would add about 20 more columns for me (I have imported access filters from LJ as well as new subscription filters) and I just would not be able to visually see the entire length of a row.

If this is implemented, fixed row and column headers are 10000% percent essential.

[pseudomonas]

I have no objection to doing something like this if a sane way can be found to organise it, but default icons aren't a good way of identifying people who change their icons frequently, post rarely, have non-unique icons, are OpenID, have no default, and so on.

[the_shoshanna]

I agree with, um, everything in this post and the comments to it. *is unhelpful*

[turlough]

*points upwards* What everyone's already said. The filter handling desperately needs to be overhauled but I'm not sure this is the best way to do it.

[syderia]

What everybody else said.