[duxhelp] Re: Embosser setup woes

  • From: "Peter Sullivan" <peter@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:17:09 -0500

Joanie, George, Warren, et al,

Let's start fresh for a moment.

I've a pretty good idea that you all (and others) are looking for several
changes.  Most of these are not closely related to one another.  So, to try
to keep the conversation from getting snarled, I'd like to stick to one
topic at a time.  I'll propose a specific change (or a mutually-exclusive
list of possible changes), and you can let me know what you think.

The first thing is how to define the purpose of Global, Embosser Setup.

Clearly (I think) Document Embosser Setup is there to edit "document-sticky"
settings.

At present, Global, Embosser Setup has but one main purpose: to edit
"user-sticky" settings that are used when opening a DBT 10.4 document, or
importing a new document using a template that doesn't contain any
document-sticky settings.

It seems that people really want and expect Global, Embosser Setup to edit
"embosser-sticky" settings.  It just doesn't do that.

But both Global, Embosser Setup and Document, Embosser Setup allow
management of a list of embossers.  Using this functionality, one can step
from either Embosser Setup dialog into a "Configuration Definition" dialog,
where it is possible to edit at least one "embosser-sticky" setting: the
default paper size.

Now, if we were to put "embosser-sticky" settings into Global, Embosser
Setup, and make no other changes, we'd have a redundant UI: default paper
size could be set in either of two places.

My first question is what is best to do about this?
  1. Ignore the redundancy,
  2. Add additional redundancy by also putting default margin, cells per
line, and lines per page settings into the "Configuration Definition"
dialog,
  3. Eliminate the redundancy by removing "Default paper size" from the
"Configuration Definition" dialog, or
  4. Eliminate the redundancy by removing the margin, cells per line, lines
per page, and page size controls in Global, Embosser Setup, or
  5. Something else?

My preference is for option #4, because this leaves the "embosser-sticky"
nature of these settings most obvious.  Specifically, we could move "Default
Form" to a new panel ("Default Document") along with the new controls.
However, I can already feel the criticism: this interface is then too spread
out.

My second preference is for option #2.

What do you prefer?

- Peter

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