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Text with title

Bidmaron said:
Folks, I gave them an easily workable solution in my previous post that does exactly what we want. We shouldn't settle for a half-assed solution. It is easy. You compute a field that is the concatenation of the label and the content and this is what is visible in view mode. In edit mode you hide that computed field and show the separate label and text fields. The only issue is that the display code would have to set like a word paragraph indent to start the first line past where the label ends. The code would have to redetermine the indent amount any time the dynamically-sized label is edited. The z order of the label would be maintained on top of the content field. This is not that hard to do. Don't settle for something less.
Click to expand...

Your proposed solution fails to handle a number of nasty complexities that you're probably not considering. Those issues turn your "easy" solution into a decidedly more complicated task.

So here's a critical question to consider...

Would you rather have us do it sooner using a simpler solution that we can implement relatively quickly? Or do it your way and likely have it take months longer before it actually gets implemented because there are numerous other features of significantly higher priority?

Tasks that take less than a day can be slotted in between "big tasks", allowing us to get some of them done on a steady basis. Tasks that take multiple days get prioritized along with all other meaty tasks, which means they don't get tackled for a much longer time unless they are high priority.

If you take the attitude of "don't settle for less", then you're effectively saying you're happy to wait a potentially long time for a feature, as it has to be weighed and prioritized against everything else. That's just the reality of the situation, since there are hundreds of things on our todo list, all of which are screaming for attention, and we can only do a few at a time.

Please keep this reality in mind when making requests.

Also, given all the complexities inherent to Realm Works, declaring something as "easy" without a thorough analysis of the actual technical implications is "bad form" on so many levels - not to mention that it's utterly misleading to others. You may have an idea of how it MIGHT be easy to do, but that doesn't mean it IS easy until you've actually considered all the technical implications. As a techie yourself, I'm sure you've encountered such situations numerous times, and I'm disappointed you allowed yourself to fall into that trap here.

Offering suggestions is GREAT, but please don't make assumptions about what is or isn't easy from a technical standpoint with Realm Works. I'm sure you'd be quite surprised at some of the things that seem easy and are actually hard, as well as some of the things that seem hard and are actually easy. :)

Thanks!
 
Put 1 and 2 together by adding a "Multi-line" checkbox to the "Labeled Text" snippet definition. When unchecked you get the Tags snippet without a Tag entry box, checked you get the indented multiple line edit control. Let us decide how much much text we tend to enter for a particular snippet type. :)
 
Rob, I don't want to get in a coding urination contest, and maybe the engine you are using is primitive enough that it doesn't support a 'LostFocus' type of event and maybe you can't interrogate a screen control that is set as auto-resize and you can't use an rtf type control where you can set the first line indent of the rtf control to the width (plus a comfortable offset) of the control that lost the focus (the label). I apologize for assuming your development environment was at least as capable as visual basic for applications, which can do all these things.

As to whether I'd wait, well, I might be alone on that, but yes, I'd wait for an effective solution rather than a half-assed one. What you have is a wonderful, friggin' outstanding product. It works as is pretty dang well. Solutions 1 and 2 are barely better than the existing workaround IMO.

Sorry for assuming your development tool is evidently less capable than I had imagined. This is not completely trivial in VBA, but it is hardly a full day's worth of coding (probably not an hour's worth).

Again, Rob. You guys have done a fabulous job, please don't consider that I'm not appreciative of the major magic you folks have worked. But this is a feature request list, and I don't think I'm out of the box expecting a feature like what we're requesting.
 
I request everyone to please disregard what I intended to be a constructive suggestion on how to implement what folks are requesting. Rob is right (of course). This is probably ten times harder than I'm giving it credit for.

I've been involved in projects before, and it is my fear that if we settle for a short-term, incomplete (which I have inappropriately deemed half-assed), then we will not get the full, workable solution (after all, we'd have something a little better than the original, why spend more effort on polishing that cannon ball?).

Anyway, I apologize to all concerned, not the least of which is Rob and his development team, who have done one heck of a great job. I really did mean it in a constructive way, but ... enough said I suppose.
 
@Bidmaron: The problem is that you are not considering a whole bunch of factors that you're simply unaware of under the covers. The framework we're using is quite capable. However, we've also had to seriously customize it in ways it was never designed for in order to do some of the stuff we've done. That makes certain things that are normally simple actually quite hard, and it also makes various normally hard things quite simple.

Your assumptions are based on the premise that we've not done any of the serious customization work. That's the crux of the problem. Everyone's lack of insight into those details makes it impossible for them to know the implications for any given feature request - yourself included.

We're listening to all the suggestions and have been working to tackle of few them already. But please don't make assumptions about what is and isn't easy, since the rules are completely different from normal due to the ways we've customized things to create Realm Works. That's what I'm asking.

And it definitely is hurtful to make statements like your "constructive" one above wherein you've gone out of your way to belittle the "engine" underneath it all with multiple aspersions. Even with the "please disregard" post following it, the message above is still "you guys must be stupid to have chosen such a primitive framework". That is definitely NOT the case.

So my request stands: Please don't assume things for which you lack the appropriate information upon which to make a valid judgement.

Thanks!
 
I really hate to jump into the thread at this point, seeing as the topic's four months old and left off with an argument, but as a new user to Realm Works, I was both surprised and discouraged to find out text snippets couldn't include labels. I understand there are UI complexities, and I'm not downplaying those. I just think the application would benefit from this feature.

Rob, Option #2 sounds fine to me. As a user, I am comfortable with the tradeoff in UI real estate if I decide I want an obscenely large multi-line text snippet. As long as I can choose between a labeled text snippet and an unlabeled one I'll be perfectly happy. Under the vast majority of circumstances, I'd only choose the labeled one if I knew my content was just going to be a one-liner. If I'm going to write paragraphs, that's almost always going to go into a separate section with an unlabeled text snippet.
 
@Lord of Annora (great SN by the way)

Don't be afraid to dive in ...

While Rob barks often (wink) he seldom bites (though have been bitten once or twice now that I think on it hehehe)

.....but don't let that deter you, he is just very passionate about producing not a good product, but a great one.... I think that is where he and Bidmaron stepped off badly (IMHO).

Rob's natural reaction is to defend his product, his team and who in his place would do it any differently? I'd much rather have a few "heated debates" than a company (and the owner in this case) not communicating at all with the consumer.

As to your feedback
+1
There is always compromise.. Rob is offering a short term solution within the timing his limited resources allows, he isn't telling Bidmaron no, he is simply saying your proposal oversimplifies the challenge (understandable since in all likelihood Bidmaron doesn't have access to the intricacies of the core coding).

It might be likely in the future, after other more pressing challenges are met and in the "rear view mirror" that a more robust and fuller featured method may come to light. (all ways the case on any software)

And Bidmaron may certainly be the spark that led to the light..... but even light takes time to travel.....

And now back to your regularly broadcast thread
:O)

Humbly
DLG
 
Hi all. I'm jumping in. labeling text snips is a +1 for me. For example I was creating a topic template for D&D 5th monster. I want data for each item in it's own place. I can easily make a tag list for Race. However, Hit Points are NOT made for a tag list.

A temporary fix could be adding the feature "Label" that would go above ANY snip and give us some ability to choose text format/alignment? This would do it for me. It takes up more space but it would be a much simpler way to get this done. We're adding the title above. A divider with text.

Sub-sections could work here but there is no formatting/text control and you would need a way to OMIT the TEXT snippet that is automatically created with a section. For instance, in category management you could put a check box that allows you to omit the added text snip IF you have entered your own snippet. (I would really like to see this feature)

Just some thoughts. RW rocks.

Thanks.
 
Don't forget that there are Numeric snippets, which have proper titles.

It is annoying that sections with no text snippet (regardless of other snippets) get assigned a text snippet. A related request thread: Sections without snippets.
 
Since Rob appears to still be compiled the survey list, I figured I'd bump one of these labeled text snippet request threads.
 
There's NO need to bump anything. Unless a thread has lain dormant for well over a year, I've gone through and noted it. :)
 
I apparently missed that "bump" or I would have flagged it as well. I'm running pretty ragged on this end...
 
Now that we've reached the point of release status, I can understand why you would and wouldn't consider some of the solutions to this. Personally, I would have wrapped all the snippet types up in some kind of designer pattern, probably the decorator one. That way all the snippets could have worked hand in hand, thus adding an additional 'label' would have been ideal. But that's water under the bridge at this point.

Though I was initially for it, I'm not in favor of using tags as labels either (as was mentioned very early on). Tags have a set limit on what they can hold (10 characters), plus each tag has its own label. I still wish the tags could hold more than 10 characters, it is really sad to see truncated tags. I know there is a short description for it, but 10 characters is a short description if you ask me. Enough of that.

My proposal is a rather simple one. Is there some way we can template our snippets for our categories? It would be nice to be able to template a text snippet so that it always has a standard set of formatting within it. For example, if I have a Category called Characteristics and within that Category I put various snippets regarding basic character characteristics, let's say Character Name, I think it would be nice if the snippet could be templated with a bolded Character Name: to start the snippet out with, so that when it is added to the Category that is already in place and I don't have to type it in or copy and paste it in each time. This goes for tables too, I tend to standardized my table sizes, fonts, layout, etc. and it would be nice to have that templated as well beforehand. Just some food for thought, as I don't that this would require too much tinkering with anything 'under the hood'. However, I have no idea what the infrastructure of the code is, so I'll leave this for you to decide.

I seem to remember that originally there was going to be templating, and sometime during the beta when things changed to the current version that went away. Am I misremembering that?
 
Kendall-DM said:
Though I was initially for it, I'm not in favor of using tags as labels either (as was mentioned very early on). Tags have a set limit on what they can hold (10 characters), plus each tag has its own label. ...
Click to expand...
I have plenty of tags that are more than 10 characters that show completely in their snippets. Long tags are only truncated if you have multiple tags in the same tag snippet. Most of my tag snippets are designed to be single tags so I can add notes in the text box.

Kendall-DM said:
My proposal is a rather simple one. Is there some way we can template our snippets for our categories? ...
Click to expand...
Sounds like a different thread. :)

ObTopic: I posted my idea upthread.
 
Right you are, seems I'm using a lot of multi-tags and forgot that the single ones don't truncate. Frankly, having the multi-tags truncate is annoying, but what can you do.
 
I very much would like this to be a thing. I'm currently trying to create a topic category, and was surprised to find that when I picked a snippet type of "Text" that the "Name" showed up where I thought the "Description" would show up. I hoped the "Name" would show up as a label. :'(
 
I've just encountered this issue in RW and found this thread. I wasn't able to express a view on it in the road-map survey.

Can I ask someone from LoneWolf to give a very brief note on whether labelled text snippets are in the to-do list? If so would they be able to give a rough idea of whether they're likely to be added soon or if they are waaay down the list? Just a rough idea would be great!

If labelled text snippets have really dropped off the radar, would other users be able to share their workarounds if not already in this thread? I've yet to work out a nice way to get a labelled text effect.

Thank you everyone!
 
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