More Intuitive UI Suggestions

[kjpearson]

Here are some suggestions for making the UI more intuitive. I think I have mentioned some before but I don't know that they were recorded anywhere so I've made an issue for them.

• Have the fx tab open by default so that users know that they have operators there that they can apply to the data. It is not obvious that that is where you need to go.

• Add a tooltip to the cursor when hovering over the globe with the location and resource value.

• Add a right click context menu that contains some useful functions like: tseries_point for that location, define area (allow a polygonal region to be defined by clicking that can be saved/used by other functons eg. tseries_mean, enso).

• Related to the previous, tseries_point wanted me to add a location but I couldn't see any way to specify this except by typing the lat, lon. If I had seen something interesting in the data, I would want to be able to click on that location and have the values copied in automatically.

• When a timeseries is created, create a plot tab by default. Opening a dataset plots the first variable on the globe by default. I was expecting the same thing when I selected the timeseries resource that I had created ie. to see the graph displayed automatically. It took me a while to realise I need a specfic plot operation.

• Opening remote data sources and downloading. It would be helpful to have a warning about the size before I started the download. It would be good to be clear where the data was going to and have a chance to override it without going to the preferences. I assume that MiB are strictly the correct units for the data size but outside of computer scientists/developers I don't think anyone knows what they are! Consider converting to the more usual MB. It would also be helpful to add "percentage complete" and "estimated download time" values based on the current download rate.

[mzuehlke]

Hi Kevin,
thanks for this good suggestions.

[JanisGailis]

Moving the issue to cate-desktop.

[forman]

Moved away by accident

[kjpearson]

Hi

I think these have been lost along the way. I believe that the first bullet now happens but not the others? The ability to select or draw a region of interest and have that easily available to relevant functions would be very useful. It would speed up the interaction and make it easier to explore the dataset. Just being able to "play" with datasets easily like that would be very attractive. I came back to Cate after a break and it took me a while to find the place marker tab but there doesn't seem to be a way to import these without copying the lat/lon into the location dialogue boxes by hand.

[forman]

@kjpearson

The ability to select or draw a region of interest and have that easily available to relevant functions would be very useful.

This has been done in 2.0.0dev.2 (#401)

Add a tooltip to the cursor when hovering over the globe with the location and resource value.

Displaying a variable's values is ongoing, see #505

Add a right click context menu that contains some useful functions like: tseries_point for that location,

We'll do that for the 2.0, I just created #542, e.g. add to context menu all operations that have a region or point argument. See also #489 and #502

... tseries_point wanted me to add a location but I couldn't see any way to specify this except by typing the lat, lon. ...

Should have been improved by #502 in 2.0.0-dev.1 but I agree it would be better to click a point on the globe while users edit operation parameters (just fetching a point, no new placemark). Now users must close the dialog, click a point and then come back.

When a timeseries is created, create a plot tab by default. Opening a dataset plots the first variable on the globe by default.

Let's discuss this in detail! I also need to explain why is currently doesn't open the time-series plot.

Opening remote data sources and downloading. It would be helpful to have a warning about the size before I started the download.

I fully agree, see new #543

[forman]

User defined geometries: