When editing dashboards for adding new tiles, the tiles slide vertically down requiring the user to rearrange each subsequent tile upwards thru the end of the dashboard. An option (configuration toggle if people prefer the choice) to slide tiles horizontally when adding new tiles, would allow the tiles to maintain their sequence while making room for a new tile being added. I realize there are some complications involved especially when dealing with wide / tall tiles etc. but these could be solved on a use-case basis to minimize reshuffling of tiles.
@Avi_Kalderon, we have the “Scalable Dashboard” feature under beta test now. Since you are a beta tester, you may be interested to check it out if it helps with the dashboard editing for you. It is not exactly what you requested for, but would keep the tile position and scale at different screen sizes.
Thanks @James - I am using the Beta and like the results but as you said it doesn’t not address the feature request which is more aimed at day to day dashboard maintenance / edits / addition of new devices and tiles which is rather laborious in the vertical shifting that is currently implemented.
Having each tile drop vertically instead of horizontally seems very odd to me, and greatly increases the time required to adjust a dashboard. I would much rather drag a new tile to any given location, and have the tiles shift right, and then down (think carriage return/new line… like a type writer).
It seems like it could be easily accomplished with one additional control (maybe only visible in Scalable/Row Width mode), that lets one select between “Push Down” [which would be the default] or a new “Push Right” alternative option.
Push down is what we have now.
Push right would be a sentence style.
In writing this post, for example, if I insert some text in the middle of an existing paragraph what’s there gets “pushed right” and if the amount of text is too much for that line it gets pushed to the start of the next line. Anyone who reads or writes (in a left-to-right language) will understand how this works, i.e. 100% of users, in theory.
This would also solve another problem (that I think) I have. My “daily carry” is a biggish iPad. My kiosk, on the wall of the pantry (named Command Central or The Bridge), is a less expensive Fire HD 10. They have different aspect ratios. With my MacBook Air I can adjust the browser window size to match the kiosk and thus use the MB Air to edit my dashboards. Without this requested feature that’s not possible on my iPad
Hopefully this feature request will get some traction. Thanks for getting this started.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m not sure I follow this use case. If the dashboard is in Scalable mode, then the tiles will automatically scale to fit the width of the screen retaining their position - and adjusting the height of the browser window would adjust how much whitespace you have at the bottom of the screen. If the dashboard is in Reflowing mode, the tiles reflow left-to-right top-to-bottom whenever the browser width is adjusted.
Josh, thanks. Let me explain with pictures and maybe you can suggest how I do things differently to get the “editing on iPad” (etc.) experience I am hoping for.
This is my current incarnation of my dashboard. Things are grouped for easier understanding. If it’s on the first row that means one thing, if it’s on the second row it means another, etc.
which again lets me edit my dashboard without having to take the Fire HD 10 off the wall.
Make sense?
With the “Push Right” option, in addition to the “Push Down” that we have today, for editing, this would all work, since I’d use “Scalable mode” and the number of columns would be independent of platform/browser/window width, etc.
I hope that helps. Thanks for all your hard work on this.
Thanks for the screenshots and the clarifying comments - very helpful. Sounds like it’s more of a challenge for the legacy Reflowing dashboard since it reflows things left-to-right based on the width of your screen. The examples were helpful in clarifying how a horizontal slide of the tiles would solve a problem in that case.
(Contrast that with the new Scalable dashboards where you would see the same number of tiles on each row regardless of what size screen you edited from.)
I hate it when you’re right. Er, I love it when you’re right… you’re right… I wasn’t on Scalable. I’ve switched (and done the semi-painful, albeit not overly difficult task of re-positioning the tiles) and… you’re right. It works everywhere. Thanks! Will check out the Device Simulator in the Dev Tools. I recall using that from back when I worked in this kind of business. I think we think we want the ‘push right with auto-wrap’ but I think if we ever got it we’d be unhappy (because we’d have some 1x1 tiles and some 2x2 and it’d be a mess). I think you have a good solution here. Thanks! Keep up the good work.
