Suggestion for Archive improvements 5.5 Beta

Good morning Paresy,

When I read the release notes of the 5.5 Beta version I thought: nice they finally improved the Archive interaction with users. I tried the 5.5 version and still you have some strange things in there.

The first thing I find strange is the action behind the button '‚Delete data‘. The subtitle of this button is ‚Delete all data of this variable‘. But when I hit this button the first question I get is ‚Do you really want to delete the selected variable from logging?‘. No, I want to delete the data not the fact that it’s logging data. But when I hit ‚yes‘ it does both: delete the data and stop the logging. When I hit ‚No‘ nothing happens, no data will be deleted. At the moment I hit Yes and then go back to the variable and start logging again but that’s a strange way to do! Clearly the interface is saying something different than the actions it does!! My suggestion, First ask if I want to delete all the data and when yes than ask if I also want to stop logging the data. But please erase the data when I don’t want to stop logging!

The second thing I find strange is ‚Delete Timespan‘ interaction. It asks me the starting point in the ‚From‘. But how do I know the first data and time I started logging the variable? Sadly I have to enter something so I go back to 2009. My suggestion would be that when I leave the ‚From‘ fields blank, ask me if I want to delete from the first known logging of this variable! Also just fill in the To with the current day. Most of the times you want to delete something that has become irrelevant. Like recorded values from last year etc.

There are more things within Archive that can make live a lot easier. Not something you use often but when you start to rebuild things as a developer in the Archive module than it’s a good moment to improve :D.

Robert

Hi Robert,

I admit that the english formulation for deleting all logged data is not that good, I will update it in the next version. I also like the idea of initializing the values in the timespan dialog.

The current implementation assumes that when you delete all the logged data, you don’t want to log the variable any more. And I guess that this is the case in most scenarios. If I delete outdated data, I’d rather use the delete timespan, as the logged data from yesterday is probably still relevant. In your case, I’d suggest deleting a timespan to clear the logged data. When To and From are prefilled, this should be possible with the same number of clicks as deleting all variable data (and deactivating the logging).