+64

"delete" and "unload"| icons are too close, this is very error-prone without "undo"

Alexander Phoenix 11 years ago updated by badon 7 years ago 28

while we are confined to mouse for unloading, there is quite high chance to delete whatever you wanted to save.

It's even worse with how icons are jumping around sometimes based on mouse-overed item type

Please, resolve this by adding "undo" of some sort and/or making icons not so close together.

Or somehow else.

Answer

-7
Answer

Non an issue as if the item have the unload icon then it is represent the open Chrome item (tab of window). If accidentally deleted such items can be always restored from Chrome by the "Recent closed windows/tabs list".


The undo is planed anyway, and other features which can help resolve this issue even further, like the tree aware history, but this issue, as it is formulated, is actually not very critical - exactly this case - items with unload and delete icons actually have the undo possibility. 


So meantime i just trash this bug.

UPDATE: Or better leave it there with an answer.


-7
Answer

Non an issue as if the item have the unload icon then it is represent the open Chrome item (tab of window). If accidentally deleted such items can be always restored from Chrome by the "Recent closed windows/tabs list".


The undo is planed anyway, and other features which can help resolve this issue even further, like the tree aware history, but this issue, as it is formulated, is actually not very critical - exactly this case - items with unload and delete icons actually have the undo possibility. 


So meantime i just trash this bug.

UPDATE: Or better leave it there with an answer.


+2
Vladyslav.volovyk wrote:

> If accidentally deleted such items can be always restored
> from Chrome by the "Recent closed windows/tabs list".

While this works for tab nodes it does not work for note nodes as far as I can tell.  I have lost notes in the past when I accidentally clicked the delete icon.

Does the undo feature you are working on include being able to undo deleted note nodes?
 

Thank you very much for Tabs Outliner!

+2

Would be great to have undo option.


Also, I use the tabs outliner in a full tab window. As such, the delete and unload icons are all the way on the right, while the text is on the left. Maybe the icons could be simply on the right of the text instead of all the way outlined to the right?

Some of the next version will be able to load user css styles so if anybody will do this, (or you) the buttons will be possible to place where you want them. They completely styled by css only

When you do this, please make sure the icons are still in the DOM... i.e., just disable their listeners. That way, we can choose to style them as greyed-out, etc., instead of completely missing.

+3

How about requiring a double click for the delete?

It's unlikely to double click by accident, just change the trash can icon to a different color or so after the first click on it to signal activation, the second click trashes the tab.

Can be performed pretty fast even if multiple items have to be trashed.

Undo will be really soon...

I hope....


Note that trash already trash only one item, except for open windows,

but in this case it can be reopened from the recently closed list from Chrome (can be found in every new tab)

-2

The delete for individual saved items is very rarely used, 

mostly they first collected by drag&drop in some hierarchy and deleted as a whole hierarchy (by collapsing it). I never delete actualy individual items.


As for open items - again, rarely needed to save individual tabs actually. Mostly this is done for a whole window. And the open window in case of accident deletion can be restored from Chrome.


So how much critical is this issue i am really not sure. For a year of very active use i so far never ever delete something by accident...


Yet undo will be soon anyway, because it is need for this thing to become a real Outliner...

Yes, this and syncing(!!!) :D (even useful on the same device: Windows <--> MacOS)

By the way, your donate button on the "About" page of Tab Outliner doesn't seem to work right now. I only get:


"PayPal cannot process this transaction because of a problem with the seller's website. Please contact the seller directly to resolve this problem."


Can you confirm that or is it only me?

+1

Ok, just wanted to suggest an alternative/addition, which may be relatively easy to implement (and might prevent stressing the future undo function too much). Just think about it. See the second click on the trash icon as a "confirm" click.


A general undo function will be needed nevertheless and it's great that you develop it :)


Of course the undo and other functions are perhaps more crucial, so maybe focus on this later ;)

-1
Declined

Non an issue as if the item have the unload icon then it is represent the open Chrome item (tab of window). If accidentally deleted such items can be always restored from Chrome by the "Recent closed windows/tabs list".


The undo is planed anyway, and other features which can help resolve this issue even further, like the tree aware history, but this issue, as it is formulated, is actually not very critical - exactly this case - items with unload and delete icons actually have the undo possibility. So meantime i just trash this bug.


+2
Just deleted some important info only because trashbin icon for the closed group was on the same level as the safe close button for the several opened groups. Is there any way to restore that group from the backup? It was closed for a while, so chrome can not reopen it.
Well, there is a way, Tabs Outliner store backups for several last days, just in case.
I will describe in few days how to restore the tree from them, don't have a time right now nor even i am close to the PC with Chrome and TO to be able to do so. 

By the way, i highly recommend from time to time expand all nodes and perform Ctrl-S - save as a complete web page. From such files anything can be restored just by drag and drop. For a year already i never delete anything important by mistake yet have several times complete Chrome crash with a complete destruction of all the data in a Chrome profile. This is a much serious and much more real hazard - so having a copy of your tree in HTML form is highly recommended and a must.

Anyway, i tomorrow will get to my computer and describe the procedure of restoring the tree from the internal backup, they are created and stored for last 9 days. You can create a copy now of your Chrome profile, if this incident happened something like 7-8 days ago, so the backup with the data you delete will not be erased till tommorow.
Thanks! The incident is recent, so I'll backup my Chrome profile for now. And thank you very much for Ctrl-S advice! Didn't figure it out myself, but really wanted manual backup to html feature.
Tabs Outliner create internally (in Chrome profile) several backups of the user tree. They automatically used in case of any problems with main storage (and they happens) but they can also be restored manually. Yet the procedure is not super user friendly.

I record a short screen-cast to illustrate it.

First, dont forget to manually backup your tree using Ctrl-S to HTML file, you then will be needed this file to restore recent nodes.

Then, use developers console to restore some backup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpxsxi99CmU&feature...;

In this screencast i first activate a Developers mode in Extensions page, to be able to open Tabs outliner console.

In console you will see a list of files that contain backups of your tree.
Files have 2 numbers in own name, first one is the creation time, in miliseconds, since the 1970.1.1, second one is the number of nodes stored in the file.

to restore any of these backups you need to write in console next command:

localStorage['serviceOptions_restoreSource'] = 'copy-there-backup-file-name.json’

In screen-cast i copy it from other window, using the clipboard, and insert in console, then i select and copy the filename in between quotes.

To force TO for utilizing the selected backup file it must be restarted. So i restart it by disabling and then immediately enabling it. 

The procedure is shown in screencast, i first restore some very old backup with just 5 nodes, and then restore some other.

After that you need to use previously saved in HTML tree to restore the data you have in most recent version of the tree. As the backup will not contain it. Or you can save your older tree, restored from backup, in HTML, then restore some recent backup and then import from HTML deleted nodes back to tree.

This screencast shows how to save tree as HTML and then import some hierarchies back from this HTML file:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2ckhBNZYhw&feature...;

Hope this will help.

Next version will have much more simple process for all of this, and also a way to see the version of the tree in any previous point of time. But for now this is the only option available.

Best regards.
All restored now, worked like a charm. Thank you very much! 
I just posted a solution to various icon and usability issues. See: Update iconography and UI.

I paid for Tabs Outliner, and in the first 5 hours of using it, I have accidentally closed tabs at least once or twice per hour. Middle click should close. It duplicates. A big "X" should close. It saves. The only reason I paid for it is because Sidewise is not being maintained and it's losing my tabs. Now, Tabs Outliner is losing my tabs. The right click menu is a monstrous mess. It needs close, save, and a few other options - not a help encyclopedia. I keep getting nagged about using Google Drive after I paid, with no way to turn it off.


This is the clunkiest software I have ever liked enough to actually continue using it. The UI is horrible. You should listen to your users when they complain about usability. Trust me, they're 100% right. Fortunately, most of the worst problems would be easy to fix. Why not use an S for save instead of an X? Why not put the S at the left side of the tab, and put X at the right side of the tab to prevent accidentally closing when you mean to save, and vice versa? Closed tabs, both active and saved need to be recoverable, but they're not.

I just accidentally closed a huge tab tree just while I was typing this. Unrecoverable.

-1

They're unrecoverable because you're not using Google Drive to do backups, dumbass.

It's stupidly easy to recover things with Tabs Outliner. Open the backup, drag and drop what you want.

I've never lost a single tab with Tabs Outliner. I lost thousands with Sidewise. =/

I do not use Google Drive for backup. I think the majority of the planet probably does not either.

You just sign in with your Google account and it all does the rest... I mean ffs it takes you 30 seconds and solves most of your problems.

That's my experience too. I just have to avoid the little icons that cover up the tabs, and avoiding using the UI, until I need to organize or hibernate tabs. The bizarre context menu is best to perform actions on the tab tree, but it's so bad, I have to avoid it as much as possible.

Fucking shit. Backspace is the one that saves, and delete is the one that closes. Were you drunk when you designed this? How do I get my money back?

I have changed my mind about wanting a refund. My priority is to not lose tab tree data and not being slowed by it either. It seems to do that better than anything else.

With a lot of tabs in the tab tree, the useless icons can cover the tabs, making it unclickable. Another bad design decision. That part of the UI should be removed completely, and replaced with a proper context menu. The keyboard shortcuts need to be configurable and disable-able. I have never needed the keyboard shortcuts, and in this case they cause loss of data when the tab view is in focus, and keystrokes are accepted unintentionally.