Interchangeable Dashboards (or Dashboard collection view modes)

I am glad that that the Gramplets view (introduced in version 3.0) evolved into View sidebar & bottombar split screens in version 3.3. But, in some ways, this massive improvement orphaned the newly rechristened Dashboard view. Its purpose became less obvious.

Perhaps Gramplet layouts oriented around a purpose could be saved & swapped as needed:
a ‘Welcome’ layout, a Database status layout, a Tree diagnostic layout, a session management layout, et cetera ad nauseam.

The Dashboard might be re-invigorated by giving it these variations of Modes. (The multiple named Configurations could be saved as Modes.)

Maybe the another pop-up contextual menu option (after the ‘Restore a Gramplet’) could be ‘Restore a layout’? Or options could be added to the ‘Layout’ tab of the Config for Saving, selecting, Renaming & Deleting a named layout? With the initial layout being named “Getting Started” And all that does is swap named variations of the Gramplets_dashboardview_gramplets.ini file in the Gramps51 sub-folder of the User Directory

However, to avoid the agony that we have in sharing Custom Filter definitions, perhaps the interface could allow each Named Gramplets_dashboardview_gramplets.ini chunk to be shown as a Copy & Paste text chunk in the GUI? Then I could copy a Dashboard configuration shared in this forum and paste it for use in my Gramps.

(And maybe in the future, since Gramps installs with a huge set of icons in the Adwaita theme, perhaps the Mode icon for the Toolbar could be selectable? Perhaps from a Media Preview style window that shows thumbnails of all the icon subfolders in the appropriately-sized-for-the-toolbar found in C:\Program Files\GrampsAIO64-5.1.3\share\icons\Adwaita\)

As an example, the following Gramplets_dashboardview_gramplets.ini is somewhat useful for managing your session:


;; Gramps gramplets file
;; Automatically created at 2021/03/03 09:17:25

[Gramplet View Options]
column_count=3
pane_position=-1
pane_orientation=horizontal

[To Do]
name=To Do
height=300
expand=True
title=To Do-1
detached_width=400
detached_height=300
state=maximized
page=0
help_url=None
navtypes=['Dashboard']
column=0
row=0

[Latest Changes]
name=LastChangeGramplet
height=175
expand=False
title=Latest Changes
detached_width=400
detached_height=300
state=maximized
page=0
help_url=LastChange
navtypes=[]
column=1
row=0

[What's Next?]
name=What's Next
height=230
expand=True
title=What's Next?
detached_width=400
detached_height=300
state=maximized
page=0
help_url=None
navtypes=[]
column=1
row=1

[Session Log]
name=Session Log
height=230
expand=True
title=Session Log
detached_width=400
detached_height=300
state=maximized
page=0
help_url=None
navtypes=[]
column=2
row=0

The default is:

;; Gramps gramplets file
;; Automatically created at 2021/03/03 09:22:19

[Gramplet View Options]
column_count=2
pane_position=-1
pane_orientation=horizontal

[Top Surnames]
name=Top Surnames
height=230
expand=False
title=Top Surnames
detached_width=400
detached_height=300
state=maximized
page=0
data[0]=10
help_url=None
navtypes=[]
column=0
row=0

[Welcome to Gramps!]
name=Welcome
height=300
expand=True
title=Welcome to Gramps!
detached_width=400
detached_height=300
state=maximized
page=0
help_url=None
navtypes=[]
column=1
row=0

It seems like there is a good argument for having reusable layouts in the Dashboard.

Initially, Gramps has a few introductory gramplets and I have to restore it for screen shots. But I often want a layout with a set of Statistics gramplets.

Or Date related Gramplets:

And other times, I need a set of Isotammi Gramplets.


Or I might configure a panel of 4 complementary QuickViews.

Changing between these layouts is tedious and fussy.

So if there was a toolbar control (similar to the Custom Type combo control) that selected between named layouts in the Gramplets_dashboardview_gramplets.ini file (or allowed a New Layout Name to be entered… which clones the current layout under that name) then the power of the dashboard would be greatly expanded. A context menu could be added to the indicator to the left which allows a layout to be removed or reset to default for any built-in named layouts.

The context menu might include an explicit Column count control … so the Configure could just be limited to the Gramplet configurations options.

Creators of new Dashboard views (like @cdhorn 's CardView could leverage the control to maintain multiple configurations too… or opt to stay with their own configuration controls.

How about an initial layout with 3 columns and the center column blank. Since the odd vacancy draws attention, the rollover hint in the center indicates that Gramplets can be added … and how to do so.

I agree that there are different times when different sets of dashboard gramplets would be useful. I would be happy if some of them (for example, Date Calculator) were things that I could simply launch from the Tools menu whenever I need them.

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In addition to the uses you’ve laid out, another is to set up Gramps in the same way for multiple users. Having the same setup initially allows each person to see the same UI allowing easy explanations of how to accomplish tasks.

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