Good Day
I think it may look silly anyhow just a thaught
It will be easy for the user if the following attributes of the form can be collapsed and expanded when needed
It is time-consuming for the user who has a smaller display scrolling up and down to create or update the form
You can use Ctrl + end on Windows or Command + Down on Mac and it will get you there immediately.
Thanks
Its only taking the whole thing up
I just wanted the attributes inside red rectangle be collapsed and expanded
Then we can get more space on the screen unless we need to do some thing with those attributes
I understand what you are asking for, but that goes against the design philosophy of manager which is not to hide things behind menus, just to keep things simple and straight forward. And to be honest itâs working well.
Having said that, you are right. The check boxes for invoices and receipts have started to border on too much. The developer realizes this and I think he will come up with a solution that respects the design philosophy.
He provided no timeline for this, so we will have to live with this for a while and use whatever tricks to make our lives easier.
Your suggestion would add one more option to the list you already think is too long. Then, the user would need to already know that an option is there and uncollapse the form to get at it. Further, seven of the options only apply to sales invoices.
Only showing checked options by default with âShow allâ toggle may work.
I would not recommend hiding up, but rather wait for lubos to fix the issue. The current design format of the invoices - even he acknowledged - it is not desirable and is too busy. I personally think that most of these settings should go into the form defaults section as speaking for myself, I never tick any of these boxes just for one invoice, but not another.
Also this addition of extra fields in the line showing the calculations makes it harder to see just the information that was there previously and worked so well.
Form defaults can only present what is on the form. You can make your standard choices there for what options you want on your invoices or other forms. But you cannot use Form Defaults as a place to allow or disallow presentation of the options.
Currently yes, but there is nothing to stop the concept of form defaults being extended to set defaults to attributes. As neither of us know what Lubos is planning to do to tidy up the invoices forms, it would be pointless to speculate. I was merely suggesting a possible avenue to address the business of the form. Lubos may decide on a completely different solution.
You missed my point, @dalacor. I struggled with wording when I wrote my previous post, so Iâll try a different approach. Iâll address this in terms of the sales invoice form, since that is the one with the most options.
Depending on which tabs you have enabled and what your Settings are, you can have up to 12 options on the sales invoice form (even more than shown in the screen shot that started this discussion). Suppose you also had a checkbox to Hide invoice options. Every one of those would appear on the sales invoice default form. If you checked the Hide invoice options box in Form Defaults, every new sales invoice form would open showing no options. You would not even know you could display line descriptions, apply discounts or late payment fees. If you had recently added foreign currencies, you might not be aware you had the ability to show the total in your base currency. If you had created custom themes, you would not see that they could be selected, and you might go stumbling around the program looking for how to use them.
Only if you thought, âI wonder what options are available for sales invoicesâ would you become aware of the universe of possibilities. That is not, in my opinion, a user-friendly experience. In fact, you have advocated against burying features in layers of menus.
Many times, we have read questions on the forum about problems where the cause turns out to be something that was set years before and forgotten. Given that choices about discounts, base currency, themes, late payment fees, and so forth can literally change from one invoice or customer to another, the notion of possibly burying these options because of a choice in Form Defaults seems loaded with potential frustrations.
Form defaults could I suppose be used to define what each business shows as âCoreâ option, and what is revealed only when âShow allâ is checked
I like this solution.
Iâve noticed a significant impact on workflow by having to repeatedly âclick out ofâ the active field, then having to âscroll downâ ( or âtabâ, âtabâ, âtabâ, âtabâ, âtabâ, âtabââŚ) in order to expose the âcreateâ or âupdateâ buttons.
I think that having these buttons located higher on the page would be a good improvement!
I agree with your points raised. However, I think that the form can be managed at admin level in each business using form defaults, limiting the users of that company to only settings that they would actually use.
I do agree that as new functionality is added to Manager, admins may not be aware of new settings in form defaults. But I think that this is a design flaw of manager that could be fixed with an alert to manager (similar to the yellow alert when there are one or more recurring pending to be issued). They could be made aware when they login, that there are new settings to review. The same complaint could be made about other new settings in Manager. I am not alerted when there are new options. But this could be resolved quite easily.
I think the real problem is that the design of the forms is not optimal as it shows all possible options regardless of whether a business whether ever use a setting such as total amount in words. What AMM suggested is a possible way forward, but personally I just think that this is treating the symptom of the problem. Speaking for myself, the only box that I have ticked is the custom theme, which I have set in form defaults anyway.
To me, the attributes actually serve no purpose (as I am already using form defaults to set the attribute) and the only time I change a setting on the forms, is to see what it does! I would suspect that the vast majority of users are like myself, that they set the attributes once in form defaults and then never ever change it in future.
What I would suggest is a form default setting in Manager to hide/show each attribute on the invoices forms that is actually being used by that business. Those settings should be set by the manager who has access to Manager settings.
Thinking about it, I am a bit surprised that any user that has access to settings such as hide due date or total amount in words. I would consider than an admin level setting personally.
I am not saying that this is the way forward and I donât really agree that I am hiding settings if the admins are always made aware of new settings that could be applied. Itâs just allowing the managers of each business to decide what end users see as most of the attributes will never be used by that particular company. I only use one setting! Hopefully @lubos would consider this as an option.
If form defaults had the option to hide options (which users could unhide).
The default should be not hidden
That way at least administrator are aware of the option
I am proposing that the administrators be made aware of the options, just not on the invoices form, but on the form defaults view and via an alert similar to alert you see when pending transactions are waiting to be implemented. This would solve a separate issue where new settings in Manager are introduced but the business administrator is not aware of those new settings.
The reason we currently need it on the invoices view is precisely because the settings area does not alert managers when there are new settings or features to be applied.
@AMM , to be honest, on the contrary, itâs very brilliant suggestion. It will make the display look clean and better manageable.
Iâll strongly vote for your idea.
Or alternatively, the create/update button could be set above the check boxes
Yes, that would be a great improvement, with no obvious downside that I can see.
Except that it would violate the visual design standard used throughout the program, under which all actions and data entry fields for a transaction form are above the confirmation buttons: Create, Update, or Delete.
