Expanding and collapsing

🌟Features
#1

I hesitate to add anything since I’m already dizzy from reading all the other posts. But one common theme is that we want more control over when items are collapsed or expanded.

For me, it came up in a bookmark. After creating the search, I expanded just the items I wanted and got the display exactly how it would be most useful. Next time I used the bookmark, it was all collapsed again. I want it to remember how I left the search!

Also, if you’re looking at a bookmark and want to add something, it immediately collapses. So fast that you can’t even type anything. You have to stop, expand the new but empty item, and then start typing.

There are all sorts of ways and places where we lack control over expanding and collapsing. Don’t overthink it! Just start somewhere and gradually build up the feature until it’s universally available.

Please.

#2

Right now, collapse state is saved differently for each document/user combination. That means if your share a document with another person and he collapses everything, it doesn’t affect you.

Not sure saving a separate state for each bookmark is too much. A bookmark is a bookmark like the ones in the browsers – it remembers what to open and nothing else.

Maybe “force expand” search operator might be more useful in this case? What you’re suggesting is quite implicit, in the sense that not everyone who expands the search results expect the state to be remembered. They might even want to have things all “cleaned up” so they’ll see neatly collapsed items next time they visit this bookmark.

Anyways, to others reading this thread, if you like this idea, please click on the Like button of the original post. Thanks!

#3

It’s interesting that this shows clearly how differently users can think about the same program. To keep your analogy going, in my mind, drilling down is like bookmarking XX.com/1/2/3.html and that’s what I want to bookmark. Your concept of bookmarking in Dynalist would be like just bookmarking XX.com assuming that every time you use the bookmark, you’re going to decide where you want to go after that. If you don’t want to “remember the state,” then you bookmark the equivalent of XX.com. If you do, you bookmark the equivalent of XX.com/1/2/3.html. You might also want to bookmark XX.com/2/5.html and XX.com/2/17.html. Why shouldn’t Dynalist give the user the option to save any of these views? Why does the program decide for the user that it’s too much to save a drilled-down state?

#4

Well, this basically went nowhere in terms of support. :slight_smile:

if you’re looking at a bookmark and want to add something, it immediately collapses. So fast that you can’t even type anything. You have to stop, expand the new but empty item, and then start typing.

But at least could this be implemented? I have a “shopping” bookmark that has basic subheads. So I click on the shopping bookmark, press enter after “groceries” so I can add “eggs” as a sub-item, and all I get is a filled in dot beside groceries indicating children. No place to type. No easy way to add anything. Bookmark - Position cursor - Enter - Click -Reposition cursor - Type is needlessly complex just because some people only want to see one level. Surely if I’m pressing enter to add a new item, you can assume safely that I want to see more than what I’m seeing?

#5

You’re not even pro. What support do you exactly think you’re entitled to?

1 Like
#6

Well, that’s certainly a friendly, neighborly response! “Support” can mean several things. In this case, it means other people agreeing with the ideas, other people feeling like the suggestions are good things to add to the program, other users believing the enhancements would better their experience with Dynalist. So the support “exactly” I feel “entitled” to is none. My point was that apparently no one agreed with me, so obviously I’m in a minority.

By the way, I’d be happy to loan you a dictionary if that would help you parse out my complex prose. I know English can be confusing when words can mean various things and you actually have to stop and think.

#7

Ah, well your whole conversation was with one of the developers so that obviously influenced my interpretation of your use of ‘support’ as in, support from the developing team. My response was also influenced by not really enjoying your tone throughout - I’ve seen worse of course, but quite demanding and unaware of competing priorities + not even paying for the service = a bit annoying :man_shrugging:

#8

Malcolm, it sounds like you want to control which nodes are expanded and collapsed in a given view. You might be able to accomplish something close using the “parent:” operator. I show a use case over in another thread where I use it to create a view that shows open tasks for different projects:

You can bookmark these searches, make links out of them, etc. In your shopping example above, you might be able to use “parent:groceries” to make sure the groceries node is expanded.

I hope this is helpful.

#9

^^ How I wish I’d responded :slight_smile:

#10

I think I’ll take my demanding tone and unawareness of competing priorities to Moo.do. I really don’t know who you are to judge how I’m supposed to word things in a forum for suggesting features, but you’ve clearly—clearly!—made my point: my thoughts don’t matter at all. Nor did I realize that good ideas only come from people who pay. I clearly belong somewhere other than with the petty little community associated with Dynalist. Goodbye.

#11

@Craig_Oliver wasn’t petty - he was really nice to you :slight_smile:

Hey look suggestions are fine of course - you were speaking to a Dev and I felt you were quite demanding and then complaining of her not ‘supporting’ you, which felt a bit rich given you’re not paying. I know the devs for Dynalist work really hard and offer amazing support, so I probably responded a bit snappily. Apparently you meant support in terms of other users supporting your idea - if I knew you meant that I wouldn’t have responded the same. I’m not a fan of internet arguments, but I guess I did start it and could have used a better tone originally. Sorry. ?:handshake:?

1 Like
#12

The way I see it, taking the extra step to save the collapsed/expanded states may or may not be what everyone expects. Some users could become very confused that a bookmark they saved decided to expand/collapse everything in a specific way, unknowing that the saved state came from the moment they created the bookmark.

Judging from the response it does seem like you’re in the minority (of wanting such a feature), but I do see a reasonable use case.

In my opinion the best way to solve such a problem, without adding YET another option/configuration to the already overcrowding settings page, is to implement it as a plugin. The plugin system would be ideal to facilitate specific use-cases like these ones, without cluttering the interface for the rest of users who might not care (or expects the opposite behavior).

1 Like
#13

Apologies for the misunderstanding here - we don’t want to harbor hostility on the platform and it’s certainly something we can do better here.

Unfortunately, since we don’t monitor the forum discussions every day, things like this sometimes get missed and it seems that we’re already too late.

Since @Stephen_Dewitt already made a statement, I hope this won’t be an issue anymore.

#14

I don’t see that you have anything to apologize for Shida. Your forum guidelines are clear and comprehensive. https://talk.dynalist.io/guidelines

I suspect there was nothing intentional here. Just reaction and over-reaction. We’ve all done it (and usually wish we hadn’t). I think the mods should only have to intervene when behaviour is intentionally disruptive or contrary to guidelines e.g. spamming, trolling, etc.

1 Like