DLN:CC Beta - Editing lists

[Dave Martin]

Re Beta 1.0.3 (DB version 2.2.3) Build Apr 26 2018 15:55:31

 

1. When creating or modifying entries on the reference lists, there doesn’t appear to be any check on whether a duplicate is being created.
   
   DLN:CC appears to (universally as far as I can see) allow the user to create duplicate entries. In the case of, say, Operator Roles, one can create two roles both called Supervisor. When one comes to associate Operators with an Image Set, you have to pick a role for the association, and you will see two indistinguishable Supervisor roles to choose from, and even if the tooltip / description had been populated, it isn’t visible.
   
   In some cases there may legitimately be multiple items such as tripod or light stand, but that would be covered by having Quantity > 1 in the equipment record as there would be no need to differentiate between them.
   
   I can envisage relatively few cases where near-duplicate entries might be required – but they would still need visually distinct names to allow them to be correctly associated. For example, if a user had two camera bodies of identical model, but different serial numbers – and the user wished to keep track of which body was used on a shoot because of the age of the body, or perhaps different firmware. Two equipment records could be created – but unless there was something distinctive about the names, the user would not know which body to associate with the image capture.
   
   It should be relatively easy for the alert user to monitor this on small lists (especially once they are sorted alphabetically) but once lists get longer, or perhaps a DLN:CC instance has multiple users, the risk of inadvertent creation of duplicate entries will increase.
   
   I would strongly suggest that DLN:CC shouldn’t allow creation of any records with identical names.
   
    

2. List ‘shuffles’ – a disconcerting phenomenon – only seen, I think, on the Equipment Overview list.
   
   If you open the Equipment Overview and then highlight a row and click [Details], or double-click a row and then [Close] the details screen, the underlying list remains exactly unchanged.
   
   However, if you open the details and then change something (not necessarily the Name) and then click [Save], when you then [Close] the details screen, the entry you clicked on has, at first sight, disappeared!
   
   On further inspection though, it has either moved to display row 9 or the bottom of the list.
   
   This is somewhat disconcerting!
   
   If the operator has manually sorted the equipment list before activating & changing details, then the list seems to survive un-molested in the chosen order (unless the list was alphabetical and the name has changed in which case the resultant change to maintain alphabetical order is performed correctly).