Re: [Gretl-users] Menu re-structuring 2009
Talha Yalta schrieb:
In July 2006, the gretl-users mailing list has seen a lengthy
discussion on how to restructure the gretl menus, which were perceived
at the time by the users and the developers to have become too
cluttered due to the increased functionality by the version 1.5.1.
This discussion can be accessed from the archives at
http://lists.wfu.edu/pipermail/gretl-users/2006-July/000829.html
has it been three years already? time goes by ...
I don't have time right now to really think about the various
connections, sorry. so here's just isolated reactions.
1)- The sample menu will be a sub-menu of the data menu. To
accomplish
this, it first needs to be slimmed-down as follows:
a)- The count of missing values will be added to the status window.
do you mean an additional column in the main window listing number of
missings for each variable? sounds ok -- but where do you put the
information about missings per observation index (period for time series)?
b)- The "Define based on dummy..." item will be
removed since
this can be easily (and even better) accomplished using the "Restrict
based on criterion..." item and with simple criterions such as
dummyname=1 or dummyname=0.
I think it's a good idea to consolidate the two things into one dialog
window. I don't think it's good to just remove the dummy variant.
c)- "Set missing value code..." item will be sent to
the
preferences menu and will be renamed as "Default missing value code
for datasets." When the user changes this setting, gretl will ask
whether the changes will be applied to the current data set. (The
missing value code can be considered as dataset dependent, however, we
see the above-described handling of similar issues in other programs
as well. For example, in openoffice the default language settings for
documents are in the preferences menu although this is also document
specific.)
why actually was this thing in the sample menu? But I guess in terms of
gretls interface logic it would rather belong in the dataset menu.
...
2)- The "View" menu will be renamed as "Window" and will be composed
of:
I don't think "window" is an optimal name
Icon view
Scalars
Gretl console
-----
(The list of all the currently open windows)
-----
Refresh windows (if this item is really necessary)
isn't this now a very short menu? seems a bit like a waste, given that
we're a bit short on menu space.
3)- The "Data" window will:
a)- Acquire the items abondoned by the former "View" menu
b)- Have a new sub-menu entitled "Modify dataset," which contains
the below items that are not accessed very frequently:
Change data structure...
Compact data...
Expand data...
couldn't compact and expand data also be consolidated? ("change data
frequency")
Transpose data...
Sort data...
Add observations...
4)- The "Variable" menu needs to be slimmed down a bit.
sorry, can't comment right now
5)- The "File" menu is in pretty good shape except for the "Working
directory..." item, which clearly belongs to the Preferences window.
IMHO not so clearly -- as Allin said, preferences do not change that
often, while my working dir changes quite a bit
6)- Regarding the "Preferences" sub-menu:
again, cannot comment right now
...
thanks for providing detailed suggestions,
-sven