Side panel for person is clunky compared with previous popup card

Alan E. Brown · April 12, 2023

As I am navigating in the Landscape pedigree view, my most common operations are

Going to a person's details
Redrawing the tree with a newly selected person as the focus person
Expanding a branch using the arrows at the right of the rightmost nodes of the tree

In the old pedigree view, clicking on a person would pop up the person card right by the place where I clicked. This made operations 1 and 2 simple -- I would just move my mouse slightly and then choose Tree or Person on the popup card.

With the new pedigree view, clicking on a person shows that person in the side panel. For operations 1 and 2, I now have to move my mouse all the way to the right of my browser window to find the View Person or View Tree button. That's substantially less efficient for my most common operations.

Another problem with the side panel is that it is drawn on TOP of the pedigree view, not to the SIDE of it. And it's big (substantially bigger than the old person popup card). I understand that drawing the side panel on top is less jerky, since it means that the pedigree doesn't have to be redrawn. But it very often covers up things I want to do, and so I have to explicitly dismiss it to proceed with my work. Yes, I understand that the side panel has more information and options, but rarely do I find them useful. If I need more information than the old person popup card supplied, I almost certainly need the full person page; it will be rare indeed that the few additional options on the side panel will meet my needs. I'm not suggesting that the side panel be drawn differently; that is surely problematic. I'm hoping you would scrap it and bring back the person popup, which is superior to the side panel in almost every way.

Clif Bergmann · April 12, 2023

Thanks for your feedback, @Alan E. Brown. I, personally, am of a similar opinion, and would at least like to have the ability to choose in the pedigree view options whether to use the person details popup or the sidebar. However, thus far, the preference for the popup has only been expressed by a handful of patrons. If there are more of you out there, let yourselves be heard.

kathryngz · June 7, 2023

Adding my vote for keeping the summary card instead of the side panel, or at least allowing users to choose.

I gave more detail on this thread:

https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/144975/summary-card-vs-side-panel

Thanks!

Kathryn

Gordon Collett · June 14, 2023

@Clif Bergmann

I haven't commented because I so rarely use the pedigree view. 99% of my time is spent on the Detail page. But looking at this and reading how others use the pedigree, I would have to agree that the pop up to shift to new people, just like we do on the Family Member's section of the detail page, is more efficient.

However, I do like the side bar and being able to see the full information on a person that the side bar provides.

How about a compromise? Leave the side bar but add to the landscape pedigree a little icon to move a person to root position just like we have on the fan chart?