webclient: Action menus should be greyed out if a grid row is not selected

[Kathy Lussier]

The action menus for grids typically perform an action on an grid row(s) that is selected. If no row is selected, the user can select an action, but nothing will happen. If a row is not selected, these actions should be grayed out so that the user knows that they can't be used at that time.

[Bill Erickson (berick)]

Code pushed:

http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=working/Evergreen.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/user/berick/lp1539089-grid-actions-menu-disabled-by-default

[Jeanette Lundgren (jlundgren)]

I plan to test this on Bug Squashing Day.

[Jeanette Lundgren (jlundgren)]

Tested and code works as desired. Action menu is grayed out if no rows in grid are selected. Mousing over the Action label shows a red circle with a line through it to indicate the menu is not available.

I have tested this code and consent to signing off on it with my name, Jeanette Lundgren, and my email address <email address hidden>.

[Kathy Lussier (klussier)]

I agree with Jeanette that this looks good, but, before it's merged, the Actions menu in holdings view raised a question for me.

There is at least one item in this menu - Choose Library for Volume/Copy Transfer Destination - that does not require a grid selection. After choosing this option, the user is then presented with a prompt to select the library from a dropdown menu. Presumably, the next step is to then select a volume that gets transferred to that library.

As far as I know, this option is unique in this regard, but we may come across similar actions in the future, and I think it's good if we discuss the approach that provides the best usability for staff.

Should we disable the menu if there are any actions that can be performed without a selection? Requiring users to select something here when it's not required may be frustrating, but, for this particular action, the user most likely will want to select an item after performing the action. Therefore, it might not be as frustrating

If we enable the menu in this one grid, then we are in the same situation that I reported in this bug, unless we gray out each action with the exception of the "Choose Library..." action.

Or maybe we need a guideline that says action menu items should only be actions that can be performed on selected items in the grid. In this case, we would then need to move this specific action outside the menu, which could add clutter to the screen.

Or we could do some other thing that I haven't thought of yet.

[Kathy Lussier (klussier)]

I'm going to open a separate bug for the issue in comment #4. Since this code has a signoff from Jeanette, I'll plan on merging it to the current webclient working branch soon.

[Kathy Lussier (klussier)]

Thank you Bill and Jeanette! Picked to master for inclusion in 2.12