Autocomplete doesn't

[bmohr]

I've just finished my first sustained editing session in Reunion 10 and I've come across a number of annoyances. I'll post about the others separately, but the number one annoyance is the new autocomplete behavior. In short, it doesn't actually autocomplete anymore, but rather offers a list of suggestions. It's sort of a "semi-auto-complete" now. In Reunion 9, I could reliably type "Chi" in a place field to get "Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, USA" and immediately tab to the Memo field to keep typing. In Reunion 10, I have to switch to the mouse or arrow keys to select the first item from the pop-down list. Unfortunately, I can't make that switch and return to typing with anything approaching the speed at which I can type "tab."

This problem is compounded by a couple other factors: The suggestion list appears, updates, and disappears slowly. The lag in tabbing over to the Memo field is just enough to feel non-responsive. Also, the inability to remove items from the autocomplete list means that a number of "one hit wonder" places are now coming up as the first match instead of much more common places. For example, typing "Ill" gives me "Illini Restorative Care Center, Silvis, Rock Island County, Illinois, USA" (which occurs exactly once in my family file) instead of "Illinois, USA" (which occurs 332 times). In Reunion 9, I could delete the first and never see it again when auto completing.

I can think of two solutions to this last problem: add a "never use for autocomplete" checkbox to each place's information panel (at the bottom of the places list) or use a different algorithm to order matches. I would love to see autocomplete match first on recentness of use. If I've completed "Ill" with "Illinois, USA" ten times in the last few minutes, the chances are pretty good I'm not going to suddenly want the Illini Care Center. Adobe Lightroom does this in its keyword autocomplete and it works beautifully.

[TeriPettit]

Re: Autocomplete doesn't

I vote for "all of the above".

1. Add the "omit from auto complete list" checkbox, for those 'one hit wonders'.

2. Keep the suggestion list sorted alphabetically (for predictability of arrow navigation), but as you type, your "current position" in the list would NOT necessarily be at the alphabetically first place that starts with the typed substring. It would instead be at the most recently entered place (or name) that starts with the typed substring. You could navigate either up or down from that position.

http://www.reuniontalk.com/showthread.php?t=6540

3. If you just tab or enter, it inserts the place (or name) at the current position in the suggestion list, even if you didn't explicitly navigate onto the list. (Note this means that if the most recently entered name beginning with "Sp" was, say, Spencer, and you want to enter just "Spence", that you would need to either navigate upward to Spence, or else explicitly delete the "r". That can sometimes be a headache, but I think on the average it would still reduce keystrokes.)

And also:

4. Make a distinction between places that have appeared only in the burial place, and those that have appeared in other place fields. At least in my circles, not very many people were born or married in cemeteries. (Although if the vampire craze continues, that may change...)

[bmohr]

Re: Autocomplete doesn't

I vote for "all of the above".

Great minds think alike!

I think your #4 would save me from about 80% of the "one hit wonders," right off the bat.

I like your approach to the suggestion list much better than the one I suggested, too. Keeping the order consistent, but changing the default would be much less confusing to most users, I suspect.

[Charles Bourland]

Re: Autocomplete doesn't

I've just finished my first sustained editing session in Reunion 10 and I've come across a number of annoyances. I'll post about the others separately, but the number one annoyance is the new autocomplete behavior. In short, it doesn't actually autocomplete anymore, but rather offers a list of suggestions. It's sort of a "semi-auto-complete" now. In Reunion 9, I could reliably type "Chi" in a place field to get "Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, USA" and immediately tab to the Memo field to keep typing. In Reunion 10, I have to switch to the mouse or arrow keys to select the first item from the pop-down list. Unfortunately, I can't make that switch and return to typing with anything approaching the speed at which I can type "tab."

This problem is compounded by a couple other factors: The suggestion list appears, updates, and disappears slowly. The lag in tabbing over to the Memo field is just enough to feel non-responsive. Also, the inability to remove items from the autocomplete list means that a number of "one hit wonder" places are now coming up as the first match instead of much more common places. For example, typing "Ill" gives me "Illini Restorative Care Center, Silvis, Rock Island County, Illinois, USA" (which occurs exactly once in my family file) instead of "Illinois, USA" (which occurs 332 times). In Reunion 9, I could delete the first and never see it again when auto completing.

I can think of two solutions to this last problem: add a "never use for autocomplete" checkbox to each place's information panel (at the bottom of the places list) or use a different algorithm to order matches. I would love to see autocomplete match first on recentness of use. If I've completed "Ill" with "Illinois, USA" ten times in the last few minutes, the chances are pretty good I'm not going to suddenly want the Illini Care Center. Adobe Lightroom does this in its keyword autocomplete and it works beautifully.

I will use this observation to make my own about R10. I have just spent a half dozen hours making corrections to "Places" from more than 15 years of entering data and finding abbreviations from the long ago days of PAF and many accidental mis-spellings of places such that in some cases a place had 10 varieties of letters for the same place. Now my file is nearly perfect in this respect. In some cases using the automatic change feature, I could get over 100 places spelled identically. The old system was pretty good, but R10 is incredible.

Further, I can now more easily than using Find Anything determine that I have enough names from let's say a cemetery that I can usefully submit my list to the local Society for publication or confirmation.

REUNION shoots, and SCORES again.

[Dona Ritchie]

Re: Autocomplete doesn't

I vote for "all of the above".

1. Add the "omit from auto complete list" checkbox, for those 'one hit wonders'.

2. Keep the suggestion list sorted alphabetically (for predictability of arrow navigation), but as you type, your "current position" in the list would NOT necessarily be at the alphabetically first place that starts with the typed substring. It would instead be at the most recently entered place (or name) that starts with the typed substring. You could navigate either up or down from that position.

http://www.reuniontalk.com/showthread.php?t=6540

3. If you just tab or enter, it inserts the place (or name) at the current position in the suggestion list, even if you didn't explicitly navigate onto the list. (Note this means that if the most recently entered name beginning with "Sp" was, say, Spencer, and you want to enter just "Spence", that you would need to either navigate upward to Spence, or else explicitly delete the "r". That can sometimes be a headache, but I think on the average it would still reduce keystrokes.)

And also:

4. Make a distinction between places that have appeared only in the burial place, and those that have appeared in other place fields. At least in my circles, not very many people were born or married in cemeteries. (Although if the vampire craze continues, that may change...)

I agree 100% with your suggestions. It would make the feature really functional. The worst thing to me, though, is having that misspelled place keep coming up AFTER you've fixed it in the place list. Why not a recompute on the autocomplete list for places as there is for names?

Unfortunately, the redesign of Reunion 10 seems to have added twice as many annoyances to my life without much gain. Arrrgh!

[Barnbarroch]

Re: Autocomplete doesn't

I can think of two solutions to this last problem: add a "never use for autocomplete" checkbox to each place's information panel (at the bottom of the places list) or use a different algorithm to order matches. I would love to see autocomplete match first on recentness of use. If I've completed "Ill" with "Illinois, USA" ten times in the last few minutes, the chances are pretty good I'm not going to suddenly want the Illini Care Center. Adobe Lightroom does this in its keyword autocomplete and it works beautifully.

These solutions would suit me pretty well too. And something similar for Auto-complete in Surnames as well please.

Jamie.

[ttl]

Re: Autocomplete doesn't

I agree 100% with your suggestions. It would make the feature really functional. The worst thing to me, though, is having that misspelled place keep coming up AFTER you've fixed it in the place list. Why not a recompute on the autocomplete list for places as there is for names?

When I make a place name disappear by merging it with a preferred place name, it also disappears from my place name autocomplete list. Is there any chance that misspelled name lives on attached to a person's record somewhere in your file? If not, maybe rebuilding the cache files might fix the problem.

Edit: I also tried changing the spelling of a place in the Places sidebar, and the original spelling disappeared from the place name autocomplete list in that case as well.

[Dona Ritchie]

Re: Autocomplete doesn't

...Is there any chance that misspelled name lives on attached to a person's record somewhere in your file? If not, maybe rebuilding the cache files might fix the problem...

Oh, thank you for suggesting that, as it was lurking in one place. I found it and corrected it, and now the autocomplete works correctly. Yay!

[ttl]

Re: Autocomplete doesn't

Oh, thank you for suggesting that, as it was lurking in one place. I found it and corrected it, and now the autocomplete works correctly. Yay!

Awesome!