UI suggestions

[Rob]

Been using Testlog for about half a year now. Its a good product, and generally I'm impressed. Its got some UI issues that would be real easy to clean up though:

1) The whole purpose of the software is managing test cases. This being true, why am I constrained to entering the actual body of a test case through a text window 4 lines high? Its a nightmare to edit anything in. I have to copy and paste between it and a real text editor in order to be able to see whats going on. Better by far to pop up (or allow me to choose to pop up) a separate (resizeable) text window/pane for entering the large text fields in.

2) Why can't I resize the current window for entering test cases? This might help the above at least a little bit, though a proper text entry window would be better. It would also make them easier to read.

3) Why can't I manipulate the main GUI while the edit window is open? Editing multiple test cases at once _might_ have locking issues - though really I don't see why you couldn't simply have two edit windows open at once - but I should be able to at least browse multiple test cases while editing one. That way I could cut and paste parts of test cases without the needlessly tedious process of having to open 1 test case, copy one section of it, close it, open the next test case, paste, close, and then go back to the original test case for the next section...

4) There should be some feedback as to which test case you are currently editing / viewing. Having to scroll back up to the top of the page to check the id is a pain. Changing the window title to the test case id would help, as would actually highlighting the test case id back in the selection tree of the main GUI.

Like I say, good product; just has some interface quirks that could be easily ironed out.

[Tim (PassMark)]

1. You can use the HTML editor to edit ([...] button) but this will add formatting tags to anything edited.

2. Resizing windows is something we should be looking at for the next major version, it isn't the most simple of things to add due to all the fields needing different resize priorities but it is something that is high on the list of requested features.

3. Having multiple edit windows open is internally more complex than it seems and would introduce file locking issues if one user opened up several files more than what they are working on at once. Allowing control of the main windows GUI for browsing would be as useful and not introduce the file locking problem, we'll keep it in mind for a future version.

4. When viewing an item you should already see the item highlighted in the tree view on the left and when you're editing an item the item's ID is displayed in the window title. Which version of TestLog are you using?

[Rob]

Thanks for the reply Tim!

3. Having multiple edit windows open is internally more complex than it seems and would introduce file locking issues if one user opened up several files more than what they are working on at once.

I was afraid of that, but it seemed worth an ask...

4. When viewing an item you should already see the item highlighted in the tree view on the left and when you're editing an item the item's ID is displayed in the window title. Which version of TestLog are you using?

3.0 (1019) WIN32. But because of the tight linkage between database formats and versions, I can't upgrade mine without forcing the entire company to upgrade theirs too (I've gotten in trouble for that once already.) And the version I have does actually highlight the item I'm viewing, but once I swap to the detail pane to scroll it switches the highlighting to such an incredibly light shade that I can't actually see it unless I look up the id first so I know where to look for it... which rather moots the point. Is that fixed in a later version?

[Tim (PassMark)]

This is the default Windows highlight when an object doesn't have focus, while you can change a lot of the visual styles for items in Windows i'm not sure that it's possible to change this highlight.