Change in Quick Entry behavior?

[JustinThomason]

I think I've noticed a change in the last update in how the Quick Entry (ctrl+Q) dialog behaves.

Previously, if I were entering topics this way, the "Container" section would allow me to assign the new topic to some logical choices of container - No Container, Current, and Last. Now, unless I click a specific topic and choose to create a Contained Topic, those options are greyed out. Hovering the mouse gets the following tooltip:

The Container selection only applies to Articles and Topics that do not belong to a top-level only category.

This new behavior is actually a pretty big drag on my content creation. I have a large overland hex map in my campaign. Each cell on the map has a column and row designation (e.g., 01.01), and I'm creating a topic for each cell on the map. To keep the topics somewhat tamed, I'm containing each cell entry in a "Hex List" topic by column. As it stands, I don't think I can just ctrl+Q my way through a column - I have to either right click on the list name and create a contained topic for each hex in the column, or create a whole bunch of uncontained hex topics, then drag them to the appropriate container which is a big pain since the dragging behavior doesn't scroll the list of topics.

Any thoughts on how I can streamline this?

 

[rob]

We fixed some issues within the UI where we allowed things we shouldn't, so it's possible we went too far. But we need to know exactly what you're doing to determine how to reproduce this. My quick tests all worked, so you're doing something specific that I'm not in my tests.

Please give us a step-by-step rundown of your workflow here, including full context on where you're at and what you're doing leading up to this problem. For example, what are you editing within the content pane and what's showing within the navigation pane? Please include as much detail as possible so we can reproduce this.

 

[JustinThomason]

Sure thing.

I'm dealing with two custom created topics - the "Map Hex" topic category which details the contents of individual hexes in my overland map, and the "Map Hex List" topic category which I created to help sort and organize all the Map Hex topics I was creating (along the lines of the Cast List for NPCs).

I have Map Hex List topics for each column of hexes on the map. Ideally I'd like to be able to Quick Create topics for all the hexes in a column and make sure they're contained in the correct list.

If I go to the navigation pane and right click on the Hex List topic and "Create a Contained Topic" from the context menu, it works fine (see ScreenShot-01). As soon as I submit that topic and I try to use ctrl+Q to make another Map Hex topic, I get the quick create dialog with the Map Hex topic type, but the Container selections are greyed out with the tooltip message I submitted before (see ScreenShot-02).

The only difference between the two entries is one was done through the right click menus on the navigation pane and one was done with the hotkey. Obviously the menu is a little bit different because it defines an explicit link to the topic chosen as container, but I feel like I should be able to define a containing topic whenever I use ctrl+Q.

Please let me know if you need any further clarification.

As a side note, I am constantly impressed with Lone Wolf's responsiveness to customer issues. I don't know any other company where the CEO would respond to a customer service question on a Sunday. Thanks for all the hard work and for the really killer products; Realm Works and Hero Lab both are a joy to use.

 

[Parody]

I recreated it in most of my Realms. It seems to go away if I switch to a different View and remains so after exiting and reloading the Realm. Perhaps it only happens if you have never changed Views since the conversion to Custom Views?

(Looks at JustinThomason's pictures.)

Hmm, perhaps not. However, I just tried switching to the Mechanics Reference in one of my test realms where it's now working in World Topics and there it's also disabled, even after switching to Articles.

Good luck tracking this one down!

 

[richardk]

JustinThomason,

We are still having difficulty reproducing your issue. Would you be willing to send us a video of you reproducing the problem? Perhaps there is a step that we are missing.

 

[Parody]

FWIW, the steps I'm using to recreate are very simple:

Open my Realm "Test".
Press Ctrl-Q.

"Test" is a Realm with the tutorial items. World Almanac is the selected View, the selected item is "Midsummer Festival Season" (which already has contained items), and the selected Category in the Quick Create dialog is Individual.

Before posting this (and messing up its state any further) I made a copy of my Master Database folder in case it would help.

Addendum: I wasn't able to reproduce it simply on another machine. I haven't used that computer for a while, though. I'll play with it some more once everything stops updating.

 

[JustinThomason]

Totally willing to send a video. Any suggestions on application to do so? I am running Mac OSX with the windows 10 tech preview in Parallels.

 

[Dakadin]

I hit this issue once right after updating and figured I did something wrong. I ended up just canceling it and trying again a little while later and it worked. I don't think I can reproduce it since I've used quick create quite a few times since then. Unfortunately that probably won't help you fix it but I will pay closer attention in case it happens again.

 

[JustinThomason]

So I found out that QuickTime Player will do screen recordings - cool.

I ran through the process again and recorded it - I put the file on Dropbox here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mmjks51qn030xwu/QuickCreateBehavior_01.mov?dl=0

It will be available at this location for a couple of weeks.

I did try doing the same process using a Cast List and an Individual thinking that it might have been because both of these categories are custom. It exhibited the same behavior.

However, when I switched to another realm, the quick create worked the way I expected. Looks like it has something to do with the realm, and not my install.

I have a game session tonight, so I won't want to do anything drastic until after that, but let me know what you think my next step should be.

 

[richardk]

So I found out that QuickTime Player will do screen recordings - cool.

I ran through the process again and recorded it - I put the file on Dropbox here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mmjks51qn030xwu/QuickCreateBehavior_01.mov?dl=0

It will be available at this location for a couple of weeks.

I did try doing the same process using a Cast List and an Individual thinking that it might have been because both of these categories are custom. It exhibited the same behavior.

However, when I switched to another realm, the quick create worked the way I expected. Looks like it has something to do with the realm, and not my install.

I have a game session tonight, so I won't want to do anything drastic until after that, but let me know what you think my next step should be.

Thank you! This will help.

 

[davidp]

Those of you who can reproduce this issue, can you retry with the latest build (1.0.1032.192) and let us know if you are still able to reproduce the issue or not? We made a change that MIGHT fix it, but since we were unable to reproduce it ourselves, we are not sure if it really does the job or not.

 

[Parody]

Still happens to me. I submitted a bug report for LWD to reference.

 

[richardk]

We were able to reproduce this (thank you Parody for your database), and believe we have figured it out. This should be fixed in the next release.

A work around:
If this is happening to you, you can get rid of it by opening the Quick Create Dialog (Ctrl + Q), and switching the Content Type to something different (such as Plot) and back, then cancel. After that you shouldn't see this issue again in that realm, on that computer (if you have Realm Works on two computers, you might have to do this for the same realm on both computers).

 

[JustinThomason]

The work around seems to have worked. Thanks everyone.