And they don’t just stay the same visually… one filter to control all of the “modes” in a category. 
This advantage feels much like the layer linking in Gimp and PhotoShop. (Their hierarchical layer grouping is a related “layer management” functionality. But no analogous value-add seems readily apparent for their layer grouping.)
And their user-selectable layer linking may have similar strategic benefits. But it might also have unforeseen interactions.
And as far as splitbar management is concerned, we should probably start a behavioral list. So apparently unconnected blind complexity becomes a transparent predictable strategy.
It may need additions to the test plan as well.
(For instance, I think one of the splitbar undocking/detaching functionalities might have disappeared without being noticed. I recall being able to drag the tab to the main pane to undock. Or to the either splitbar to re-dock. Currently that does nothing. I might be misremembering.)
I like that setting a filter in People or Places has no effect on the Grouped People or the Place Tree list. I set a filter then after selecting a record, I can go into the Grouped or Tree list for further analysis.
Anyway, sorry for the digression into fixed-bars for category views (it is important but not the topic of your post).
I made a prototype and I really like this. Here is a demo:
When I created gramplets and the dashboard, I felt that it didn’t live up to its potential (limited space).
You can create as many dashboards as you like, keeping similar gramplets organized.
Feedback always appreciated!
Does each “dashboard” use the same number of columns or can each have their own setting?
Each has their own config. Very nice!
It looks very potent! Thank you!
I wonder if there isn’t a way to reclaim the header space the new dashboard layout selector consumes across all the dashboard columns?
There are several alternatives to making it appear to be another gramplet. Each has benefits and drawbacks.
- a popup menu (or combobox) at the center of the status bar
- Renaming main window for the current named layout
- A context menu layout selector, moving the the add/remove/rename controls to the Config menu with the column ount control
My first thought was a toolbar control beside the Configure button. The big downside is that the toolbar is becoming increasingly populated with shortcut buttons. So a variable width control might consume precious space that could be used for future powertool/action buttons or new Dashboard View modes. (Such as a narration/presentation/slideshow Dashboard; a branch/line Dashboard… where gramplets only see a portion of the tree; a full-screen Dashboard where all the splitbars, gramplet titling/decoration and window controls are suppressed; a worklist or research log dashboard; an AI assistance dashboard; et cetera.)
The existing renaming behavior for Dashboard gramplets is a double-click invoking inline text edit … in the gramplet’s titlebar. perhaps we could avoid introducing another pop-up modal dialog for renaming. And another new idiosyncratic way of doing a similar task.
What do you mean that it appears to be another gramplet, and why is that bad? Do you mean that the controls are not clearly delineated from the gramplets on the dashboard?
I don’t prefer any of those for one simple reason: they are hard for discoverability. We have so many things that are non-obvious, and I think this UI is straight-forward and consistent.
…
Oh, yeah. I forgot that you could edit gramplet titles (and I wrote that!)… because it isn’t very easily discoverable.
We have plenty of pop-up modal dialogs.
It looks similar to a collapsed gramplet but has different behavior and controls. So that adds another memorization to the learning curve. (In the capture below, the Name cloud gramplet was collapsed and relabeled “Dashborderly”).
However the similarity could be leveraged. Make it an actual gramplet and more intuitive rather than less so.
For instance, when the + is clicked it could expand to a short (150px or so) GUI for managing Named layouts: renaming, deleting, adding, changing layouts. Integrating the Column count control for each Layer row. Maybe with a quickview report context menu for each row. Which pops up a list of Gramplets in that layout with their plugin registration description and linked to the registered help-url. Eventually, evolve to have a Save/Load for sharing layouts. Or where a saved “recommended layout” could be attached to an Addon set and which appears in the list of named Dashboards if that Addon is installed.
Yes. None of them thrilled me either. I was hoping to prime the pump for others to say “those ideas were no good. How about…”
Perhaps the Statusbar-based Add and Delete options could be a bit less accessible?
I hesitate to let someone explore in Gramps because they can do so much damage, so quickly and easily.
Installed the new Dashboard. Great!!!
Laid to rest my short-lived Dashboad2 addon.
One small issue.
When I first open the drop-down list to select another view, the first rows are blank then the list appears. It seems that the number of blank rows is equal to the number views.
Thanks for testing! I’ll take a look.