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Various feature requests

I've been doing a bit of work with clibu and it is very useful :) I collected a list of things I wanted to raise up which I thought my be useful as further improvements so I thought I'll post them here - 


  • export - of a whole KB or the whole clibu (ideally as a zip). This is quite essential for backup. I'm trying to use clibu for my study notes and it's simply too scary without having a backup of the data.
  • login - can we have it so that browsing to myclibu.com automatically opens shows the username/password/login fields ? this is a more common and convenient experience
  • Delete a KB - I think that is a major operation that needs to be more protected. I suggest asking the user to reenter his password which is a common practice in such cases.
  • Editing toolbar - the columns for styles, fonts, and font size are unnecessarily wide which makes the whole toolbar unnecessarily wide and often cause it to spill to a second line
  •  Tab header - it will be more useful to have the article name rather than the KB name in tab headers
  • multiple article tabs - that will be very helpful. I am trying to work with one KB and use the tag tree to create my document structure but ATM I can't open multiple articles of the same KB in separate tabs
  • Pane width - can we have a drag feature to change the width of the kb/article/tags pane ?
  • Add tag - as the tag tree becomes more and more big and deep I think the current way of showing it when adding a tag will become problematic. Perhaps instead of popping from the top right it can open in a centered popup with scrollbars or some other way ?
  • Add tag - Can the tag tree showing when adding a tag be sorted according to depth so that for example study -> books will always appear under study ?
  • Pasting - Can there be a 'paste plain' button & keyboard shortcut
  • Bug - pressing shift+right or shift+left on an empty line makes the cursor disappear
  • Print - can we have a print feature ?
  • Add to article - Can the clipper have an add to current article which will paste into the currently open article in clipper ? this will be very useful when collecting data in a single article
  • Clipper - In the clipper, can pressing the article (hourglass) icon or the tags (clip) icon open the articles/tags list dropdown ?

Thanks!

1 person likes this idea
4 CommentsSorted by Oldest First

Hi MIke,

Thanks for your detailed feedback 


> Export. On the todo list. FYI we do regular backups and so far all Clibu databases have been rock solid.


> Login. Some applications do open straight to a Login screen and then include a Register/Signup option. Whereas as Clibu has these as separate and distinct operations and also allows us to display the Welcome screen. For now I think this can stay as is.


> Delete KB. Sounds like a prudent thing to do. Another option is to provide an Undo capability, which is something I want to do more of in Clibu. What do you think of that?


> Editing Toolbar. I'm in the midst a substantial UI/UX update to enable Clibu to work on small screens such as Smart Phones. I've reduced the width of the Font button and made all buttons a bit narrower. I haven't changed the width of the Styles button. On mobile etc. some buttons are now excluded and the toolbar slides horizontally, so it is always on one row.


> Tab Header. Article titles are typically quite long, so you wouldn't see much in a Tab. I'm "personally" more interested in the KB name. I've been thinking of a having a popup when you hover over a Tab which has article information.


> Pane width. I've worked on this in the past, but not very successfully. It's not too bad with a mouse, but gets more difficult with touch UI's. I may revisit it at some stage. The new "small screen" UI has a single panel instead of three and I'll probably enable this as an option on large screens. 


> Add Tag. I can't quite visualize what you mean here. Could you mock up a screen shot. 


> Pasting. Try Ctrl+Shift+V


> Bug - pressing shift+right or shift+left. Yes this appears to be a bug. I've checked some other HTML editors and they have the same problem. My guess is that it's a Browser issue.


> Print. Is planned.


> Add to article. You can do this via. the Browser right click context menu. See this blog post. Also search for "Clipper" in the Blog for other articles.


> Clipper. Seems like a good idea. Added to the todo list. You meant KB icon (which shouldn't be a magnifying glass!). Click on the input fields opens the dropdowns.


Thanks again for your feedback and helping us to continue to improve Clibu.

Hi, thanks for the reply !


> Export. On the todo list. FYI we do regular backups and so far all Clibu databases have been rock solid.


Ok that's reassuring, but still I feel this is a totally essential feature and I don't feel I can really switch to clibu until it's there. Another related aspect of this is working or accessing content offline (plane etc)



> Login. Some applications do open straight to a Login screen and then include a Register/Signup option. Whereas as Clibu has these as separate and distinct operations and also allows us to display the Welcome screen. For now I think this can stay as is.


Another possibility to consider is a separate URL (myclubi.com/login) that will lead directly to the login screen



> Delete KB. Sounds like a prudent thing to do. Another option is to provide an Undo capability, which is something I want to do more of in Clibu. What do you think of that?


Yes both are good, undo is of course better, or even better moving to a bin where it can be restored from



> Tab Header. Article titles are typically quite long, so you wouldn't see much in a Tab. I'm "personally" more interested in the KB name. I've been thinking of a having a popup when you hover over a Tab which has article information.


The real point here is the ability to open different articles from the same KB in separate tabs. This is to me an essential feature and as far as I can tell not possible ATM ?



> Add Tag. I can't quite visualize what you mean here. Could you mock up a screen shot


OK. I think I will try a longer explanation. What I have been looking for is a note manager which has 3 features: first - cloud based (clibu tick), second - sync as you type (clibu tick), third - tree note structure 


As I understand clibu was designed to achieve a tree structure using tags. The rationale and advantage here is that you can have the same article in multiple tree nodes. This is overall an ok idea but I am struggling with the current implementation.


(As a side note I will say that having a very solid tree notes implementation will I believe make clibu a life saver for any serious note taker in any number of fields)


To get a tree structure for all my notes I will use a single KB and work with the KB pane closed. I keep the tags and article list panes open and select a tag somewhere in the tag key.


Here I am starting to run into issues:

  • The main issue is creating a new article in that tree place, that is with those tags attached. ATM I need to click the plus in the article list pane, then click the tags icon in the new article and then find and select the appropriate tag/tree position. This is confusing and not workable :( what is missing is a single button to add a new article with the tags of the selected place in the tree (add a new leaf)

  • Also it would be great to either be able to forbid articles with no tags or have a way to see all 'uncatalogued' articles - articles with no tags

  • There is no easy way to show/hide both the tag tree and articles list panes, specifically in this scenario you never want to work with just the article list pane as it makes no sense to see a flat list of all the articles. What is missing is a way to toggle them both together. Another possibility is to have a setup (maybe as an option) so that hiding the article list pane will auto hide the tags pane and that if just the tag pane is opened clicking on a tag with no more nested tags inside it (leaf) will automatically show the article list pane.

  • Another useful setup option would be that when selecting an article the tags tree and article list panes will auto hide to give maximum work space

  • As the tag tree structure get big, things start to look visually problematic, see attached screen shot where you can see how:
  1. The tag path at the window title has caused the whole top window area to become very wide .
  2. The tags path displayed at the top of the article pane gets cut and basically there is now this green bar on top of the whole article. I think that since it's there in the window title it can be removed from the article pane top itself at least as an option (attached screenshot).
  3. The tag button in the article pane is not visible anymore 


OK I better stop now :) I hope this comments and discussion are helpful :)


Thx!


PS1

Another thing I noticed is that trying to login with a wrong passwords results in "The connection to the Server has been lost. Try Reconnecting."

 

PS2

As you can tell I have a strong interest in cloud note taking, I actually tried to make one (See moyanotes.com) but that project is now out of steam (no time, frustration with firepad/firebase, no real way to achieve word indexing, etc)

 

PS3

I'm in Melb too, perhaps someday we can have a coffee ...

 


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Hi Mike,

Some quick replies, more later.


> Export: Understood. 

> Offline is very much on the drawing board.


> Tab Header. The real point here is the ability to open different articles from the same KB in separate tabs. This is to me an essential feature and as far as I can tell not possible ATM ?


Unless I misunderstand this is part of Clibu's basic functionality. Either click on the Tab dropdown menu and select 'Duplicate' or Open the KB dropdown menu and select - "Open in new Tab". Then you'll have the same KB open in multiple Tabs. Each Tab one can have whatever article you want displayed etc. I work this way all the time.


> Tags. To Create an Article with the selected Tag Tree item, click on the Tag Tree drop down menu and select 'New Tagged Article'. ie. This creates an Article and adds the selected Tag to it.


When editing an article you can add Tags from the Tags widget and also when text is selected you can use the floating toolbar Tag button to create a new Tag from the selected text.


> To see all Articles that don't have Tags select the 'Untagged' item from the Tags tree. Second item from the bottom.


> There is no easy way to show/hide both the tag tree and articles list pane.

 You can use the Tags Filter instead of the Tags Tree and just have the Articles List open. 


> Another useful setup option would be that when selecting an article the tags tree and article list panes will auto hide to give maximum work space

I'm nearing the end of a major UI update for Mobile  / Tablets which just has a single side panel which is shared between KB, Tags & Articles List. The auto-hides the Articles List upon selection, and switches from the Tags Tree to the Articles List when you select from the Tags Tree.


I plan to make this "alternate UI" an option that can be used on Desktop. It will take time to evolve, but so far seems quite good.


It seems as though you haven't discovered the various drop down menus, and are therefore missing a lot of functionality, which is of concern to me.


I'll reply further asap, I'm out of the office tomorrow.



Reply continued.


> As the tag tree structure get big, things start to look visually problematic, see attached screen shot where you can see how:


1) To handle this I'll look at compressing the tags probably using ... ellipses for the ones in the middle.  


Out of interest in practice will you really go 7 levels deep. I personally use around 10 KB's and typically wouldn't go beyond three levels deep in tags.


2) The Tags Filter on the top navigation bar only displays the current query, whereas the Tags in the Article are all the Tags for that article, not just the one(s) matching the query. Further on mobile / small screens there is no Tags filter.  Again compressing long tags with ellipses is likely the best way forward.


3) Tag button not visible with long tags. Noted. Again shortening tags with ellipses will help, however there is an issue here.


> OK I better stop now :) I hope this comments and discussion are helpful :)


Absolutely.


>PS1  Another thing I noticed is that trying to login with a wrong passwords results in "The connection to the Server has been lost. Try Reconnecting."


I've never seen this and think it is simply a coincidence that the server connection was lost. 


>PS2 Interesting. I did have a quick look at moyanotes the other day. There was an error signing up, got the email but just see a spinning wheel we I login.


> PS3 Sure. I actually live and work out of town, down on the Mornington Peninsula.


I think I've covered everything and look forward to your reply.


Neville



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