I've noticed that this has been the typical layout of my screen in the last three weeks:


So I have access to:

• source files and SVN controls on them
• typical editor with ability to jump to declarations and a margin at col 80
• a class/module browser
  
• Can navigate files with ALT+TAB
• at the bottom: SVN commit logs, test results, Python run results
• top right: quick switch between SVN remote file access, PyDev, and debugger (which actually sucks since I can't look up my variables)
  
• Also cygwin for running scripts, launching a DrP standalone portal, and basic Unix commands
• IPython for debugging purposes; function source and docstrings
• browser with tabs for: Elixir documentation, SQL Alchemy documentation, utoronto email, my blog, and one extra for quick navigation to something not mentioned above.

Just something I've noticed.


Saturday I think I'll have to start thinking about the user interface pretty soon:

• creating a new project
• editing a project
• event log
• view tickets (includes querying)
  
• ticket details

Based on my own experiences, I think that users that want to create several quick-and-dirty tickets should be able to do that seamlessly. Others who want more detail will always be able to fill in more fields and take their time. This brings up another issue: we've been working under the assumption that fields will have default values which will take effect if no values are provided in a ticket. What if the default value doesn't always apply? We don't want to have to handle NULLs in the database and optional and non-optional fields for the user. But if a user wants to quickly fill in the description, all the other fields in her ticket will be their default and this information may be misleading to others.

I think speed is the key (no, not computation complexity, user speed). I should be able to specify all the fields I want when I create a new project, I should be able to change and delete them in place without having to click more than once, I should be able to view parts of a ticket that I feel are important right away (or with a mouse-over). I should also be able to view the field values of a ticket in a nice tabular, succinct form. Changes to a particular field should also be simple and not require more than one click.