In my opinion the Rule Machine screen labelled "Define a Rule" should be changed to allow you to select each individual Trigger Event or Actions to Run. Rather than selecting all of events or actions.
The Define a Rule screen will have a command button next to the list of eventr actions which allows you to add the appropriate item. Each invidual action or event on the list will have a command button so you can edit the action or event along with a delete button. There will also be two buttons allowing you to move the event up or down in the order.
Then the next screen, which is the screen I find so frustrating, will be focused on just that one action or event. Which will greatly simplify the UI. At the bottom you will be given the option to Cancel your Edit or Add New or Save the changes.
Ah, so a tremendous complication to the code of the app to make for a simple UI. If wishes were horses....
Seriously, I agree that the RM UI is frustrating and due for a complete redesign. But, for an app that is now over 6-1/2 years old, and has grown to 10,000 lines of code, this is no small undertaking.
No, my suggestion is basically moving code from the Action screen to the previous screen.
Making things much simpler for users to navigate is always a benefit.
10,000 lines of code? I have on application where I wrote 79,000 lines of code, along with 350 forms and 450 reports. Another with 27,000 lines of code. Now granted some of that code is API calla and copy and pastes.
Were your comments developed when you had the UI trashed with the screen reader option on?
I was developing a rule today, and I must say the UI is a pain. Not so much the page layout that you were talking about, as creating an expression. This needs a re-do.
More care also should be paid to how options are presented. There are too many buttons with similar wording -- Done with This, Done with That... I think there should only be a single Done button available at any one time, with a possible Cancel button as well. So I'd say how options are presented is another area that needs a re-do.
The action picker thing is sort of painful, but with about 100 actions to choose from, there's either a huge long pull-down menu, or two pull down menus each with fewer choices (like now). But that's an extra step just to get to where the action can be defined. Perhaps it should be a hierarchical pull-down with sub-menus.
This is definitely going beyond the incremental changes outlined in the original post.... but would the recent advancements in importing rules and more generally apps as json files offer options to craft things like rules using a UI without the constraints of the existing UI platform?
I guess I was wondering whether HE could provide an alternative to the existing RM interface that still produced a json out that was the same as the current RM app, from a UI they develop and maintain.
I'm expecting the answer is likely to be no, it's no small undertaking to develop a new interface and then have two to maintain... but thought I would throw it out there... you never know...
