[Engine-devel] Remove Comment column in main tabs

[Mike Kolesnik]

----- Original Message -----
> Hi Malini,
> 
> > This could work but I am not a big fan of simply adding iconic columns
> > preceding the name. This is actually a good example where 2 icon columns
> > are
> > already there and adding another column is making the primary column ( i.e
> > the name column) not seem like the first column the eye focuses on.
> 
> not sure that I completely agree with that: if I am taking my e-mail client,
> for example - it has a lot of icon columns that precede the primary columns
> ('From', 'Subject'), however I don't think that it makes the primary columns
> any less 'catchy' (see attached
> 'e-mail-client--a-lot-of-preceding-icons.png').
> Having said that - it may depend on the actual content of the icon columns
> (i.e. in my e-mail example, the icon-columns are mostly empty, whereas in the
> VMs main tab example, at least the 'status' and 'vm-type' icon columns are
> expected to always contain some icon), so not sure.

Leaving obscure open source email clients aside ;), gmail also has icon columns,
although without any title or boundaries but visually it looks like a column..

> 
> > I understand that it is not as easy implementation-wise but in the effort
> > to
> > start moving towards a more elegant solution, I am wondering if we can cash
> > in on what users may have learned in spreadsheet software and use a dog ear
> > image at the corner of the name cell ( See attached). This way, we are not
> > dedicating any more space and it does not take away space allotted to the
> > text string either. The visual details of the icon are not final and this
> > is
> > sent to communicate an idea only. If we agree on this, I will send the
> > final
> > icon to use.
> 
> this solution is nice and elegant - I like it;
> my main concern is that I am not sure how will we be able to sort the items
> by that field if we won't have a dedicated column for it (once column sorting
> will be available in general, of course).
> my other concern is indeed the implementation effort that would need to be
> involved in it.

Not sure how interesting it is to sort by comment, but for the sake of not
blocking it - a dedicated (small) column seems good to me.

> 
> Question is if it is something that is worth considering if we decide that
> the
> extra-icon-column solution is acceptable.
> 
> Another option (at least for the short term) for solving the real-estate
> problem
> without changing anything in the primary column area is to keep the 'Comment'
> column in its current location, only replace its textual title with an icon
> title
> (see attached 'move-comment-column--option-1-variation.png').
> 

I think if the comment is among the first to appear it serves it's purpose
better since the admin can clearly see that someone left a comment there and
pay attention to it, whereas if it's on the far side it can easily be missed
(or even hidden on a lower res screen).

P.S. I think icon columns should probably be non-resizeable as it really makes
no sense to resize them (they have a minimum width anyway).