455396 - Extend task editing controls in tasks view (e.g. edit description in-place); consider full inline task properties pane

Status: NEW

(Calendar :: Tasks, enhancement)

Description

[Reed Hedges]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008071618 Iceweasel/3.0.1 (Debian-3.0.1-1)
Build Identifier: 2008033118

This is a usability feature request. 

When in "Tasks" view, the bottom portion of the window is reserved for the selected task's description. This is a very large space, however; often a task doesn't even have a description.  It would be much more convenient and a better use of that space to include the whole contents of the task editing dialog box (including description), plus one-click buttons for setting priority (which is missing from the task-editing dialog box).   This would make it much easier to work with tasks.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Jens Müller (:tessarakt)]

Uh, I nearly missed this bug.

I interpreted "in addition to just description" as "you can already edit the description there".

As a first step, it would be nice if you could at least to that, but displaying everything including edit possibility would be better.

Comment 2

[Philipp Preißer-Kewisch [:Fallen][☁️📆]]

We do have some buttons to change task properties now. I don't think we should allow quick editing of all properties (i.e description), this would make the task dialog obsolete and bloat the task view too much. Compare to the Thunderbird compose dialog, you can't edit an email there too, even if its a draft.

I'd vote for WONTFIX, but I'll go for a second opinion.

Comment 3

[Martin Schröder [:mschroeder]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I'd vote for WONTFIX, but I'll go for a second opinion.

I would vote for a quick edit option of the description on the Task tab. I think it's a common use case to update task descriptions regularly with information (e.g. progress). Also I'm a fan of "less dialog" applications that allow inline editing or opening an extended view of the object to edit without leaving the focused screen.

Comment 4

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to comment #3)
> I would vote for a quick edit option of the description on the Task tab. I
> think it's a common use case to update task descriptions regularly with
> information (e.g. progress). Also I'm a fan of "less dialog" applications that
> allow inline editing or opening an extended view of the object to edit without
> leaving the focused screen.

Absolutely agree with Martin, my vote for this feature. It's highly annoying to have the data (like description) right in front of you, but no way of editing it unless you call up the extra dialogue. 

A) Proposed solution (short term)

We should at least implement a quick edit mode for the description property, for the reasons pointed out by Martin's comment 3. Furthermore, can we please try related Bug 290814: Tasks should have a "quick edit mode": click and type to create new tasks in the task list, in-place editing of task titles. It's all about intuitive in-place editing: do more with less clicks, and less clutter (i.e. less dialogue windows).

(In reply to comment #2)
> We do have some buttons to change task properties now. I don't think we should
> allow quick editing of all properties (i.e description), this would make the
> task dialog obsolete and bloat the task view too much.

Making bulky dialogue windows obsolete sounds like reasonable idea, and it has been done before... Actually, it's still being done, wherever you look...

> Compare to the Thunderbird compose dialog, you can't edit an email there too,
> even if its a draft.

Well, but at least I can see *all properties* of the composed mail (sender, subject, recipient, formatted text, attachments. And there's this outstanding "Edit" button that take's me straight into edit mode. As opposed to the task view, which basically shows nothing except title and description. Which is arguably not enough. Plus my descriptions are short, so the rest is just useless empty space. Maybe not everyone wants to see *all* the details of the task, but surely many people would want to see *some* relevant details. Actually, I wouldn't mind having the full properties page in the task view.

B) Proposed solution (mid-term)

As a compromise (and easier to code), we could implement something similar like FF bookmark manager: Selecting a bookmark from the list will initially show only some bookmark properties, but there's a "More"-button to reveal more detailed properties. We could do the same for task properties: by default, show some, and the remainder on demand. Actually, we could borrow more cool functionality from bookmarks: Event/Task "Categories" are just another type of "Tags", and FF has this perfectly charming and efficient way of adding those by typing (with autocomplete), plus you can click on the dropdown arrow to expand and chose from the full list. Actually, we would have a cleaner and more versatile UI, compared to the bulky and static buttons now, which also conflict space-wise with longer titles (bug 570124), and somehow they never look right next to the subject.

C) Proposed solution (long-term; with or without B)

At the end of the day, IMO the only sustainable solution for this is full customization: a simple configuration dialogue where users can tick which elements they want in their task view or not. And in-place-editable!

Comment 5

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

P.S.: By converting task view into an editable task properties pane, we would also eliminate the counterintuitive and ugly UI situation that we show things like category or priority on the header (on the left), but you can't edit them in-place where you see them. Instead, you have to look again and find the right button somewhere else (far on the right). In-place-editing just feels better.

Comment 6

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

The idea of this bug is really to turn current task *view* into an *editable properties pane*. However, for security-oriented users, we might want a toggle button that turns the whole properties pane from read-only into editable, to avoid accidental deletion or change of data (which I believe is the main reason for the "Edit draft" button in TB, apart from the extra full-fledged UI needed for composition).

Comment 10

[bgmCoder]

Wow, I came here hoping to see someone was going to solve this.  I cannot fathom why you can't type directly into the Description area!  I have avoided the Lightning Task pane as non-productive for years because you can't type directly into the fields here.  Instead, I try other external todo lists (Like ToDoList) - and it's ashame because I love Thunderbird and have used it since version 2.0!!!  I'm dying here!  Someone please make the task pane's fields directly editable!

Comment 11

[Stefan]

I signed up for Bugzilla just to leave my brilliant ideas of making the task view intuitively and easy to use. From its present state, I assumed that this must be a rather new feature which simply did not have the time to mature. I was happy to see that solutions have already been suggested, but then I was shocked to see that this has already been done five years ago! 

I heavily support the demand for usability improvements here. Please follow the route A) and B) that has been described by Thomas D. back 2010-06-04.

Comment 12

[bgmCoder]

[waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!] I have been a Thunderbird user since version 2, and I've wanted this so much and I'm sure it's easy enough to do!  I asked for it 3 years ago (you can see it above).

Can we please add this?
When we go to the task pane we can see the task's notes area below but we can't edit it there.  If I could edit the tasks here instead of going to the "Open Task" dialogue and editing it there in the Description area - I would be delighted!

In fact, there should have to be a "Edit task" dialogue.  It would be better if all the controls showed right in the main tasks window!  That's how nearly all of the full-fledged to-do programs work.

If Thunderbird worked this way, I would abandon all use of other to-do programs.