[bt-devel] bt-devel Digest, Vol 53, Issue 12

[Jonathan Morgan]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 2:32 AM, Eeli Kaikkonen
<eeli.kaikkonen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dylon Edwards wrote:
>>> Packaging the svn head at a random date is not necessarily a good idea.

...

>> 2) The new bookshelf manager is awesome!  I was wondering if maybe we could
>> include the extra repos by default - disabled at first - and display all the
>> available modules on one widget (with the option of exploring the content of
>> each repo individually - maybe by placing each repo in a listbox on the
>> side)?  We could also create a searchbox that would filter through the
>> modules according to specific search terms such as module name and
>> description.
>
> See http://devel.bibletime.info/wiki/Bookshelf_Manager_redesign for
> monologue which I used as a development plan. When designing the
> bookshelf manager it should be remembered that it's not usually the most
> frequent task for users to install modules. Because our resources are
> limited we can't implement every wanted detail. Also, the user interface
> should offer as much useful functionality as possible but still stay
> clean and simple. Extra widgets bring extra complexity.

While I would agree that installing modules is not a frequent task, it
is typically one of the first tasks that will be performed by the
user, and as such it is important that it "just works".  Like it or
not, that installer will be one of the most important things users use
to determine if Bibletime is worth using or not, so it does assume a
greater importance, IMHO.

> Therefore a filtering capability, for example, is not a feature I would
> implement. If you can point to a common use case where it would help
> tremendously I could reconsider.

In order for it to just work, I think you need the following:
1. As many module repositories included by default as possible (would
be nice to have Crosswire, Karl's repository, and the NET Bible at
minimum, though I agree with you that NET Bible registration is a
possible complication and beta modules probably shouldn't be included
by default).  I suspect that many users will not discover "Add Source"
or know how to use it when they come to it (again, as you discussed).

2. Search, somewhat like the filtering above.  If you have a large
number of modules in the list, it is unreasonable to expect users to
read through all of them searching for the ones that they want.  Just
being able to type in a word and filter out modules that don't match
it would be a big improvement (I want ESV, I type ESV).  I suspect
that many users will want to read through all modules just to see
what's available, but some will be overwhelmed and simple textbox
search/filtering could help them enormously.

Jon