1768137 - Improve workflow of creating events by dragging across time slots: Implement option to open full 'Edit Event' dialog directly after event creation (to bypass inline title edit)

Status: NEW

(Calendar :: Dialogs, enhancement)

Description

[adrien.rybarczyk]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/100.0.4896.88 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create an event by selecting a time slot
2. Want to modify the event

Actual results:

After the slot selection, the focus will be on the title modification.

If you ever want to change things in addition. You will have to lose the focus on the title edition, double click on the event, click on Edit.

It requires a lot of action from the user to achieve what he wants.

Expected results:

I know that there is also the double click on the calendar interface to launch the event creation interface.

However, with the slot selection, it is more accurate to directly select the slot you want relative to other events you may have.

Why not add a possibility for the user to directly open the event edition interface after he has selected a slot.

It could be possible to leave the choice of behavior to the user through a preference.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Hi Adrien, thank you for constructive engagement with ux-efficiency of calendar event editing!
It's certainly not ideal yet. Calendar will get more attention in 114.

(In reply to adrien.rybarczyk from comment #0)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/100.0.4896.88 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create an event by selecting a time slot
2. Want to modify the event

What exactly did you try in terms of clicks etc.?

Actual results:

After the slot selection, the focus will be on the title modification.

I get you, but it's a bit misleading.
If you have just finished creating/editing an event, the event will (strangely) not have focus.

• First single left-click on event selects it, e.g. for deletion: correct, expected and required.
• Enter on selected event does not do anything - that's an accessibility bug.
• Another single-click on event will edit the event's title - looks right to me too, it's not reasonable to expect any (first or subsequent) single-click to open the entire event for viewing/editing. Said differently, I see no reason why a user should single-click (again) on a (selected) event with an intention of opening for viewing/editing.
• Double-click on (selected or unselected) event will always open it for viewing/editing - that works.

If you ever want to change things in addition. You will have to lose the focus on the title edition,

Not exactly true, as explained above. No good reason to try single-clicks for editing.
I'd guess the convenience of fast title change outweighs the danger of slow double clicks or unwarranted single clicks involuntarily ending up in title edit. That said, getting out of direct title edit with mouse is way too hard - clicking on another empty slot will typically not stop title editing. That's bug 705600. ESC or Enter to leave direct title edit works. As another workaround, you could double-click on the event time to edit the event even when direct title edit mode is active.

double click on the event, click on Edit.
It requires a lot of action from the user to achieve what he wants.

Understood. That's bug 1685007 territory, indeed a bone of contention.
However, iiuc, less trivial to fix than many may think: If we provide an option to make "edit event" the default action for double-click again, how do you handle cases where user double-clicked on a recurrent event? How do we know which instance(s) of the recurrent event the user wants to edit (between "this event only", "this and future events" - not yet implemented - , "all events in the series")?

Expected results:

I know that there is also the double click on the calendar interface to launch the event creation interface.

However, with the slot selection, it is more accurate to directly select the slot you want relative to other events you may have.

I'm not sure I follow. Could you rephrase this please?
In the same line, could you rephrase this bug's summary to better describe which change you want to see?
Current summary: "Creation of events by selecting slots in the calendar"

Why not add a possibility for the user to directly open the event edition interface after he has selected a slot.

Are you thinking of small action popup after selection? Not for 102. Perhaps possible for 114.

It could be possible to leave the choice of behavior to the user through a preference.

Yeah, that has been suggested for bug 1685007, although as explained above, I have some feasibility doubts for recurrent events.
In addition, event may not even be editable if it's only under server/organizer control, although probably at least some aspects of the event should always be editable for the user.

Comment 2

[adrien.rybarczyk]

Attachment: slotSelection.png

Comment 3

[adrien.rybarczyk]

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #1)

Hi Adrien, thank you for constructive engagement with ux-efficiency of calendar event editing!
It's certainly not ideal yet. Calendar will get more attention in 114.

(In reply to adrien.rybarczyk from comment #0)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/100.0.4896.88 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create an event by selecting a time slot
2. Want to modify the event

What exactly did you try in terms of clicks etc.?

Hi Thomas,
I realize that on some points there have been misunderstandings and I apologize. I should have explained better.

The part I only wanted to mention is the creation by selecting a slot (example: previous image).

Steps:

1. Select a start time and keep the mouse button pressed
2. Move the mouse until you reach the desired end time.
3. Release the mouse button

Actual results:

After the slot selection, the focus will be on the title modification.

I get you, but it's a bit misleading.
If you have just finished creating/editing an event, the event will (strangely) not have focus.

• First single left-click on event selects it, e.g. for deletion: correct, expected and required.
• Enter on selected event does not do anything - that's an accessibility bug.
• Another single-click on event will edit the event's title - looks right to me too, it's not reasonable to expect any (first or subsequent) single-click to open the entire event for viewing/editing. Said differently, I see no reason why a user should single-click (again) on a (selected) event with an intention of opening for viewing/editing.
• Double-click on (selected or unselected) event will always open it for viewing/editing - that works.

After the mentioned steps, the event will be created and by default the focus will be on editing the title.

To leave this edition, 3 solutions:

• press the Enter key
• press the Esc key
• click on the event

If you ever want to change things in addition. You will have to lose the focus on the title edition,

Not exactly true, as explained above. No good reason to try single-clicks for editing.
I'd guess the convenience of fast title change outweighs the danger of slow double clicks or unwarranted single clicks involuntarily ending up in title edit. That said, getting out of direct title edit with mouse is way too hard - clicking on another empty slot will typically not stop title editing. That's bug 705600. ESC or Enter to leave direct title edit works. As another workaround, you could double-click on the event time to edit the event even when direct title edit mode is active.

Some users will not only want to change the title for the event they created and that's where the steps add up.

They will have to leave the title edition (if they have not already filled it).
Then you have to open the event edition. After clicking on the event to open it, they will get the interface asking if they want to edit the event.

This bugzilla is about these 3 actions.

Since the user has just created the event, they still have, in theory, some changes to make.
The idea would be that after selecting your slot. Instead of putting the cursor on the title edition, open the edition interface by pre-filling with the selected dates.
The action of leaving the title edition will be replaced by saving the event. And the other 2 actions will be deleted.

Finally, you have to let the user choose between the 2 behaviors on what he prefers to use.

double click on the event, click on Edit.
It requires a lot of action from the user to achieve what he wants.

Understood. That's bug 1685007 territory, indeed a bone of contention.
However, iiuc, less trivial to fix than many may think: If we provide an option to make "edit event" the default action for double-click again, how do you handle cases where user double-clicked on a recurrent event? How do we know which instance(s) of the recurrent event the user wants to edit (between "this event only", "this and future events" - not yet implemented - , "all events in the series")?

This editing interface is useful, especially for recurrences. That's not really what the present bugzilla is about.

Expected results:

I know that there is also the double click on the calendar interface to launch the event creation interface.

However, with the slot selection, it is more accurate to directly select the slot you want relative to other events you may have.

I'm not sure I follow. Could you rephrase this please?
In the same line, could you rephrase this bug's summary to better describe which change you want to see?
Current summary: "Creation of events by selecting slots in the calendar"

The expected result would be to have the possibility to open directly the editing interface after selecting a slot to create an event.
By selecting a slot from the calendar, the user can visually and quickly manage the end time of the event he wants to add.

Done, I hope it's better.

Why not add a possibility for the user to directly open the event edition interface after he has selected a slot.

Are you thinking of small action popup after selection? Not for 102. Perhaps possible for 114.

No need for popup.
If the preference is active, if the user makes the action of creating an event via the slot selection, open directly the event edition window by inserting the dates he will have chosen.

It could be possible to leave the choice of behavior to the user through a preference.

Yeah, that has been suggested for bug 1685007, although as explained above, I have some feasibility doubts for recurrent events.
In addition, event may not even be editable if it's only under server/organizer control, although probably at least some aspects of the event should always be editable for the user.

It is not possible to create a recurring event in this way as far as I know so the question of recurrents does not arise.

Comment 4

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Ryan, fyi. This is Adrien's bug (reported against 91, same for Daily) which I talked about to you. More evidence that ux-efficiency really matters, especially for enterprise users. Every (superfluous) click counts. Made worse by popular bug 1685007, which screams for a pref to restore direct event editing for those who prefer that and are bored by the extra step of having to click the Edit button on the preview. This bug is a bit different, may need a pref too, for direct edit of a new event created via dragging across time slots (with time slots preset in edit).

(In reply to adrien.rybarczyk from comment #3)

Now we're talking. Got you! Thank you for clarifying! Good point. Have adjusted the summary some more.

(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #1)
Steps:

Let's mention that this will only work in Day and Week views.

1. Select a start time and keep the mouse button pressed
2. Move the mouse until you reach the desired end time.
3. Release the mouse button

Actual results:

After the slot selection, the focus will be on the [inline] title modification.

After the mentioned steps, the event will be created and by default the focus will be on editing the title.

To leave this edition, 3 solutions:

• press the Enter key
• press the Esc key
• click on the event

Yeah, sort of. For short events, this is more tricky indeed. For longer events, you could immediately double-click anywhere on the event outside its title (not exactly intuitive, but possible). But still, you are right that we should have a way to immediately go to full event editing without having to go through editing title-only.

Some users will not only want to change the title for the event they created and that's where the steps add up.

They will have to leave the title edition (if they have not already filled it).

Only required for short events, sort of. Although, double-clicking outside the title isn't exactly intuitive, which again supports your point.

Then you have to open the event edition. After clicking on the event to open it, they will get the interface asking if they want to edit the event.

Sure, that's the other bug 1685007 which I mentioned.

This bugzilla is about these 3 actions.

Since the user has just created the event, they still have, in theory, some changes to make.
The idea would be that after selecting your slot. Instead of putting the cursor on the title edition, open the edition interface by pre-filling with the selected dates.
The action of leaving the title edition will be replaced by saving the event. And the other 2 actions will be deleted.

True! Much more efficient for those who are not into rough and simple scheduling.

Finally, you have to let the user choose between the 2 behaviors on what he prefers to use.

Sounds good, as different users may have different needs.

If the preference is active, if the user makes the action of creating an event via the slot selection, open directly the event edition window by inserting the dates he will have chosen.

Yep.