Morpho

Item 1) in bug description is incorrect. Currently, when a data file is updated,
the id IS just revised to the next version number.

Some additional notes from an email from Dan Higgins:

Some preliminary thoughts on the data editor capabilities summary.

Data editing refers to editing of text-based tabular data

Existing data is displayed in a panel which has has a Java JTable grid display.
Entity (table) level metadata and attribute (variable) metadata exists for the
displayed data.

• Currently:
  o Editing is limited to the in-place editing of any cell in
  the table display; i.e. select the cell and enter new data).
  o When the user clicks the upate button, the newly entered
  data is saved to a new version of the data fail, the package
  metadata is also updated, but entity and attribute metadata
  do not need to change.

• Planned
  o Add a row anywhere in the table - This requires changes in
  the datapackage(new version) and entity metadata,(number of
  records changes) but attribute metadata is unchanged.
  Metadata changes do not require any additional input from user.
  o Add a column anywhere in the table - requires changes in
  datapackage, entity, and attribute metadata. Must ask the
  user for attribute info for the added row
  + automatic column fills (sequential, repeat) - uncertain
  + fills from metadata NOT automatic (i.e. require user
  input)
  o Note: if we allow adding rows and columns to empty grid, we
  have the ability to build a completely new dataset (i.e data
  creation inside Morpho).
• Uncertain?
  o row and column deletion
  o text searching
  o column re-ordering
  o spell checking
  o column sorting
• Not Planned
  o Joins, subselects with discontiuous regions., calculated
  cell values, etc. ???

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the overview. Looks good. My 2 cents are:

1) your "planned" features are good. Note that the editing data feature should
add the annotation capability that we discussed in SB and is sumarized in bug 545

2) I would move the following features from the uncertain category to the
planned category: row and column deletion, column reordering, column sorting

3) I would move "text searching", "spell checking", "automatic column fills
(sequential, repeat)", and "fills from metadata" from the uncertain category to
the not planned category. Although these are good features, I think we should
postpone their implementation.

4) I would prioritize the resulting list of planned features in the following
order in terms of importance of implementation:
a) add a column
b) delete a column
c) reorder a column
d) column sorting
e) change a cell value
f) add a row
g) delete a row
h) annotate data changes such as row additions, deletions, or cell value changes

Each of these features allows the user to make changes to the data entity, and
so there should be a "Save" capability for the user to indicate when a batch of
changes should be saved to disk as a new revision (ie, 8 spelling changes should
not result in 8 revisions). Note that a, b, and c can already be done by
editing metadata, but the changes are not properly synchronized with the data at
this point in time.

Thanks for writing this stuff up. I guess it was more like 4 cents worth, but
whose counting, eh?

Basically, all the planned changes except for annotation of data changes have
been implemented (and the low level changes for annotation have been made. -
Need to create a user interface and decide where to save).

One limitation is that changing of column order can be done, but not easily
(Requires one to copy all the data in a column, delete the column, create a new
column, and then paste the data into the column.) Probably should allow the user
to simply drag column locations and rewrite the attribte data when this is done.

This change is being postponed.

Basically, all the planned changes except for annotation of data changes have
been implemented (and the low level changes for annotation have been made. -
Need to create a user interface and decide where to save).

One limitation is that changing of column order can be done, but not easily
(Requires one to copy all the data in a column, delete the column, create a new
column, and then paste the data into the column.) Probably should allow the user
to simply drag column locations and rewrite the attribte data when this is done.

This change is being postponed to version 1.3.

DONE. column editing feature add as its own bug.

Original Bugzilla ID was 546