More thoughts on the New Person Page
I haven't posted to this list in years.
I have long thought that we need two interfaces, one for basic (very GUI) users, the other for the simplified (more character-based) users, the latter using the old source linker and other implementations that are more friendly to less-powerful hardware. I have also thought it advantageous to offer more features to advanced/experienced users.
Until recently, I was using FireFox on Samsung Tab S2 in landscape mode. The display is 4:3. This hardware worked well until the record search dialog changed. There isn't enough 4:3 screen real estate to display the search/record dialog, making the S2 almost useless for FamilySearch work. Worse, the event display used to be a popup; now, it is an iFrame. This change caused a HUGE performance hit, as the screen now frequently repaints. It didn't repaint when popups were used.
The S2 finally failed, and I acquired an Samsung (Android) S7 tablet. The display on this unit is 16:9, and I use it in landscape mode using the Brave browser. It seems clear that the developers work on fast hardware with 16:9 displays. If this aspect ratio is required, a statement of system requirements would be helpful.
The S7 is much faster than the S2, but the iFrames still cause a huge performance hit. I Changing the added iFrame back to a popup on the Research Help and on the Record Search would eliminate a performance bottleneck.
Now, about the New Person page.
I am generally a character-based user. All of this GUIness and visual eye candy is not useful to me. I want to minimize the header and get rid as much white space as possible. Where possible, find a way to eliminate the scroll bar. When the New Person dialog opens, I want to see as much relevant textual information as possible, not graphics, illustrations, pictures, etc.
Not a part of this redesign, but I never want to see a Research Help "Possible Missing Child." This is useless. Additionally, I would like to suppress the display of the sites that I do not use in the "Search Records" list. Implementing these two changes would cause everything below to shift up into the initial display.
The Life Sketch field doesn't have to be at the bottom of the screen. As it is virtually never used as intended, I would move it to the individual's context bar:
About Details Sources (31) Collaborate (0) Memories (0) Life Sketch (0)
I like the notion of adding an indicator to show that the field is not empty.
We have a desperate need at the top of the New Person display for notes. That's why folks abused the Life Sketch field. Years ago, the notes displayed at the top of the record until supplanted by the Life Sketch field. I would like the option to display the note headers (no detailed display) when the record opens.
When editing a Custom Event, I have to scroll to see the Delete Custom Event hyperlink. I would like to convert this function to a Delete button on the footer. Do something with the text "People following this person will be notified of your change" so that the scroll bar does not display.
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Now, for glitches:
(1) When I tag a source on a Custom Event, the Latest Changes shows "Source Reason Changed." It should say "Source Tagged." (L6QR-5TG)
(2) The entries in the Latest Changes are not hyperlinked. I have to Show All to be able to click on the links. They are hyperlinked in the Old Person dialog.
(3) On the Sources dialog, I click on Options and see FamilySearch and User Created. A very, very large percentage of my work is in the Film Viewer, and I create source from documents using the Film Viewer. In my mind, these are User Created sources, but when I uncheck the FamilySearch option, the entries from the Film Viewer are filtered out. The option User Created seems to mean External. Choose a different term than User Created, please.
(4) When I display a source, the number of times that the source has been tagged does not display.
(5) When I display a source, the return shows "My Source Box" rather than the name from the calling PID.
(6) On the list of sources, the slider "Detail View" is absent.
(7) When displaying the New Person page, I click on Following, do nothing and click on Person. I am taken to the record for my PID rather than the person that I just viewed.
Comments
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@Bruce Compton Thank you for the report on the new person page. These are great ideas and observations.
Please join in this group to make further comments on the new person page https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/316-new-person-page
It makes it easier for me to find and others interested in improving the person page are also watching.
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