Modal item edit frames

[pfooti]

Dunno if the lingo has changed in the last ten years, back when I was learning about this stuff, we called them "modal dialog boxes"- when they are open, you cannot click anywhere else in the window.

The item edit boxes (what you get if you double-click an ingredient or vessel) are modal. When the item edit box is open, you cannot click anywhere else. That's pretty annoying for two reasons:

1- I cannot read the extended ingredient description text any other way (mousing over doesn't seem to make a tooltip with the long description)

2- I cannot "fudge" the heat calibration data on my vessels by changing the numbers in the editor and watching the schedule change in a recipe (since I have to be on the "vessels" tab to open the editor). I've definitely noticed that my brew day reality (as measured with a good thermometer) does not match the predicted behaviors indicated by the calibration routine. Rather than worry about that, I just fudge the heat capacity and bleed off values so that the schedule hits my expectations in terms of strike temperature and temp after a 60 minute rest.

[slothrob]

I don't mean to undermine your feature request, but let me suggest a feature you may not be aware of and a work-around:
1) Try using Command-I to open the information box. You can leave that open and click on different ingredients in turn to view the descriptions without opening and closing a window.

2) I had good luck with the mash tun calibration, but I did make a small fine tuning at one point. Try opening the vessel's edit window, then changing the heat capacity and watching the temperature after 5 minutes change. This should give you a pretty good idea of the effect the change will have on the mash, before double-checking the change in an actual mash schedule.

[jawbox]

again exactly same thing I do. I always have my info window open. Also had no issue with my calibration, did initial setup which got me in the ballpark then tweaked to mirror actual results from a mash. since then my numbers hit everytime.

I think there's a lost thread in the equipment threads with peoples setups, mash-tuns etc.

[pfooti]

Command-I does bring up the info frame, which is a help (except for when the info instpector brings up info about your recipe instead of the grain you've selected from the fermentables window, but I suspect that's more of a bug than anything else).

Still, from a basic HI perspective modal interface frames should be used as sparingly as possible. What they say to the user is, "you cannot do anything else until you change this", so unless navigating pages away will break something, there's no real reason to make it so. In most UI toolboxes, choosing whether a frame is modal or not is a boolean variable and not a major deal.