enhancement Show Insert menu when right-clicking or double-clicking on an object connection

[Chris Messina]

Currently if I right-click on an object, I get an expanded menu:

 

 

But if I right-click on a connection line, I get a minimal menu:

 

 

It seems like double-clicking on a connection line between two objects should cause a contextual insertion menu to appear:

 

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by chris
updated mockup to show delete & zoom in/zoom out options

[deanishe]

Where should the new item be inserted? A connecting line necessarily already has an element at each end.

[Chris Messina]

2 minutes ago, deanishe said:

Where should the new item be inserted? A connecting line necessarily already has an element at each end.

 

In between (on the line), i.e.: 

 

 

to:

 

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by chris

[deanishe]

Makes sense. But what does that add over the "Insert Before" or "Insert After" menus on the elements?

 

Adding features isn't free. Why should a day be spent implementing and testing this instead of working on a new feature?

[Chris Messina]

It adds clarity, discoverability, and utility. 

 

This proposal comes from my own direct experience and confusion, and I'm pretty familiar w/ the Alfred UI. 

 

Specifically, when @vitor said to add "a Transform Utility with Trim Whitespace between the Run Script and the Open URL" I didn't know what he meant. My intuition was to try direct manipulation of the connector between the Script and the Open URL blocks by right clicking on it — but it didn't reveal the option that I expected. 

 

I might have been able to figure this out myself if I remembered that I could add transformation between objects, but since right-clicking didn't reveal a contextual option, I got stuck. 

 

I have no idea how long it would take to implement this idea (I'm sure @Andrew does!), but it just seemed to me that reusing the functionality that's already in the adjacent object menu might not be too challenging, relative other kinds of feature requests.

[deanishe]

4 minutes ago, chris said:

when @vitor said to add "a Transform Utility with Trim Whitespace between the Run Script and the Open URL" I didn't know what he meant

 

And now you do.

 

 

[Andrew]

Adding "Insert object" on the right click context menu for connections actually already exists on my future improvements to the workflow editor plan.

 

This is along with new a "Delete and Reconnect" objects (where possible) when on the selected object context menu, which would remove the object and connect the incoming and outgoing connections.

[Andrew]

5 hours ago, chris said:

But if I right-click on a connection line, I get a minimal menu

 

Adding it here would be discoverable.

 

5 hours ago, chris said:

It seems like double-clicking on a connection line between two objects should cause a contextual insertion menu to appear

 

Adding it here would be non-standard.

[Chris Messina]

10 hours ago, Andrew said:

Adding it here would be non-standard.

 

Perhaps; I'm borrowing from my experience in design tools. When you double click a line, it switches into an edit/insertion mode, so in that context, it would be standard.

 

I'm not sure which UI paradigm(s) the Workflow Editor borrows from?