I hate (and may I say, that is not a strong enough word for it - loathe? detest?) the Edit Context dialog.
I am not that coordinated manually (one of my few shortcomings ) and that dialog is HORRID to work with.
I wish they had constructed a dialog more along the lines of the Pivot dialog in Reporter (you know, when you Format Table). Something with 2 list boxes and arrow buttons where you move things from the left to the right, to âAddâ or âRemove.â
I was thinking the exact same thing today as I searched for a join to add to a context (there are approx 500 joins in this universe).
In addition to the feature you described, I would like to be able to either order or filter based on the tables involved in the join.
This is an excellent suggestion. Have you every submitted a enhancement request to Business Objects? The more times it gets requested the better chance that it might get done.
Heck, Iâd be happy if the context portion of list mode (the rightmost of the three sections) simply sorted alphabetically. The order is not even âas addedâ ⊠seems totally random to me. Michele is right though, enhancement requests would be the way to go.
Iâve found this frustrating too. I suggested that users be allowed to sort their joins alphabetically at a lunch at the Miami conference for higher education and government users. I also thought it would be nice if you clicked on a join to have the screen shift to the spot in the model where the join was illustrated. I also thought it would be nice to only display the joins included in a context when the context was highlighted so we wouldnât have to run through all of them to find the relevant joins. And, when creating objects or joins that the scroll windows would remain at the last table or column you picked so you wouldnât have to scroll down all over again.
You can see how much attention they paid to this. I know they were taking notes - I saw them doing it. I also saw other attendees shaking their heads that they agreed with me. Oh well.
Iâm going to a dinner at the conference with Business Objects executives. Iâll try to corner the products person and reiterate the problem. Any other suggestions?
I was working with this the other day and agree with your complaints. Could you suggest being able to use the Shift key when selecting joins for a context? I had most of my joins in one context and only a few in another but I couldnât highlight the first join and use Shift and highlight the last to select all the joins for the âbigâ context. I had to select each one individually!
Thanks, Monica
What a great idea and opportunity! You could be a hero to thousands of BusObj users, Debbie!
You are absolutely right, the Context window is a userâs nightmare. I listed a few other items at Problems with Designer. (My list should probably actually be added to the wish list post.)
The plain and simple reason that Designer/Supervisor/Reporter have so many terribly frustrating and time-wasting components like the âEdit Contextâ window is because these products systematically violate so many of the fundamental design principles explained so clearly in About Face.
And yet most of these flaws could be fixed so easily! If BusObj would just spend the small amount of time needed to go down a short checklist of these design principles, even just for each of Designer/Supervisor/Reporterâs helper-windows, their customers would be a million times more happy with BusObj software, and would loathe it a million times less. Weâre not talking a major product redesign, here; even simple, âbasicâ things like making the âHeirarchiesâ and âAggregate Navigationâ windows resizeable or putting a Windows-standard âmaximizeâ button on already-resizable windows like the âEdit Contextâ window, not to mention the excellent suggestions by you and others in this post, would make a tremendous improvement in user-satisfaction.
Hereâs to a great, positive conversation with the BusObj folks!
A belated thanks for the support, Sunspot. I take it you are a fan of Alan Cooper as well.
I didnât see your reply until just now because the company I was working for at the time had another downsizing the day you posted your reply. Since then I havenât been working with BusObj, , so I havenât been keeping up with the BOB familyâs dinnertable conversations. :?
Now Iâm looking at BusObj positions again, so please tell me you all have gotten rid of all those BusObj annoyances.
) and that dialog is HORRID to work with.
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
Since then I havenât been working with BusObj, 
, so I havenât been keeping up with the BOB familyâs dinnertable conversations. :?