I am opening this topic as a spin-off from a couple other topics. The concept is for a dashboard feature.

In many applications, the concept of a dashboard is a feature/window that sums up relevant information for the application and user. Much like a dashboard does in a car; your driving speed, remaining fuel, engine temp, and so on.

Essentially, BD has attempted to do something like this since v3.0 with its

• 3 lifer counts at the bottom of the main window
• background report telling you what you are likely to see at any user defined location for the current time of eyar

But we could do much better. Two main questions:

1. The BIG Question - What should be in this dashboard?
2. Should it be in its own child window (like the other windows inside the main window in BD) or should it exist in the background of the main window like the background report does now?

My thoughts for #1 above:

• some bar graphs showing current life counts (annual and lifetime) for selected locations, taxonomies, users
• last sighting entry (bird, location, observers) - when you last went birding.
• What else?

Let's get this started.

Jeff

oooh, where to start with ideas. This is going to be fun

1 - The dashboard should be in its own window. That way users can dismiss it, resize it and new features can be added with more ease (I hope). The dashboard window should open automatically when you open Birders Diary.
2 - Show life counts. Counts of interest are 1) Global Life Count 2) Continental Life Count, 3) Country Life Count and 4) State(s) Life counts. Of course, a life count for your favourite location (e.g. yard) shoud be included as well. For some people ABA/AOU regions may be of interest as well.
3 - Link life counts to a standard report. It would be awesome if you can tie the life count feature (item 2) in with a report. Click on the life count number and a predesigned report opens that lists all the species. Most of the building blocks of features 2 and 3 are already present in Birder's Diary.
4 - List of total species seens since the beginning of the year. I think it'll be fine that locations in this list are the same as the locations listed under item 2.
5 - Graph or table showing total species seen by year (perhaps with option to filter by location can be added in a later release).
6 - Buttons that will open checklist entry and keyboard entry. It may be a minor duplication of the button bar, that that is OK.
7 - Button/list (if feasible) to your reports. Click on the list and report opens.

The count feature at the bottom can be replaced with the dashboard and the background report can be removed in my opinion.

Gerco
 

Dashboards are very cool. Anything that can be queried in a report should be able to be a pane in a dashboard. I.e. Any sort of county, state, country, year, life, etc list. Graphs would be cool, things that show progress over time, such as year list over time graph. One idea also is to make an option to have the background for BD be your dashboard. That is certainly what I would do. I'd love to be able to have a dashboard that shows the various state lists, country lists, county lists etc. Another idea is savable dashboards. I.e. a savable set of dashboards, just like savable reports. So if I was living in Kansas (like I am now), I could load up the "Kansas County Lists" dashboard that shows me my county lists - Possibly something like:

| Johnson County - 77
|
| Most Recent County Bird: Eurasian Collared Dove
____________________________________________


A good place to go to get ideas, just in terms of how dashboards could work is jazz.net which is an IBM site. If you register on the site Jeff, you can actually go look at project dashboards for IBM projects, such as here: jazz.net/jazz/web/projects/Rational%20Team%20Concert#action=com.ibm.team.dashboard.viewDashboard&team=RTC%20Development

What I like about the Team Concert Dashboards is aside from being customizable on what you want to see, they are also movable, so you can drag them around the dashboard and organize them exactly how you want to display the data.

All - I have gone back-n-forth on implementation details on this quite a bit. And, I can't get away from wanting to have these dashboard features as the background (in place of the current background report) to the main BD window.

These 'dashboard' features would be controlled (turned on and off) via the View > Options window.

Initially - I am working on two features for this:

1. If turned on, a grid that attaches to the bottom of the main BD window area; just above the status bar with the currently selected 3 lifer counts. It would contain the last X sightings in your database based on what you select from Observers, tax lists and Location (singular). For example, you could choose: you and your spouse, ABA and Butterfly tax lists, and your state; and set to show the last 100 sightings entered. That Grid would come up and display from last entered going backwards, the last 100 sightings of birds and butterflies for you and your spouse in your state. You could scroll that list and double-clicking a row would bring up the Edit window.
2. Unlimited graphs for location counts, based on observer, location, tax list (standard lifer count criteria). The bar graph would show total things at that location, how many you have seen ever at that location and how many you have seen this year. It would be one bar per location/observer/taxonomy as in the example below. And, you can create unlimited number of these for display on the background. You could have one for your birdgroup; well, any combination of the above 3 items.

Get your ideas/comments/feedback into me on this asap as I am implementing this fast.

It just seems to make sense to have this information in the main BD background for you to see everytime you startup BD and it is always there for review. I just like it better than having its own window. Tell me why this isn't a good idea.

Jeff

Jeff,

A few thoughts:

1. You say a graph would show total things at that location, how many you have ever seen there, and how many there this year. What if you pick a location that has no associated location data - for instance, my backyard? I'd assume the numbers would show something like 0, 115, 86 - but you'd need to account for that first 0. Or would it be more accurate, if that number is 0, to show the same number as the second (total things ever seen there) but flagged someway to show it as a "derived" field - like 115*, 115, 86?

2. Would the "last X sightings" in the example you gave in #1 above be tied to the sighting date, or the entry date? I would assume the former - if I found an old list from 2002 and entered it, I'd hate for that information to appear on the last X list because it was entered more recently.

3. Given the example you listed: is the last X number for both taxonomies combined, or X sightings from each taxonomy? If the former, would they be separated first by taxonomy, then sorted by date within each one? Assuming I tracked ABA and Butterflies, I would find it confusing to have 100 sightings for birds and butterflies intermingled sorted only by date.

4. I don't have a problem with the "background" idea, but I think it would be nice to have it as a stand-alone window as an option.

5. Would this only update when you start BD? Or would it update dynamically as you entered sightings?

I have a separate post coming up that combines aspects of questions 2, 4 and 5.

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

Thanks much for the input/feedback:

1. In that case, I do not show the gray bar (in the example above). The gray bar is always drawn at 100% width. Then of course, the green and blue then are a percentage of that number's width. When the total is not know, the TOTAL bar is drawn at 75% width and then the Annual bar correctly sized in that.
2. You know - I haven't made up my mind on this one. I can see value for both. I think the default is date, but perhaps an option for it to be Entry Date.
3. All taxonomies intermingled, sorted by date. The last 100 sightings you have in the database; filtered by selected taxonomies and observers. I don't find it confusing. In other words, if I chose butterflies and ABA, I would see the butterflies and birds I sighted yesterday (reminding me of my outing yesterday, everything logged), and then all butterflies and birds sighted on my outing last week, and so on. It seems to work ok. I think that if I showed just the birds sighted (yesterday, then last Wed, then last Sat), then started showing the butterflies in the same manner - that would confuse me. I see this as a tool to remind me for review and corrective purposes what I have most recently seen (filtered by what I am interested in by taxonomy and observer). Clicking on the grid will bring up that list in the View/Edit grid automatically so that I may edit any sighting(s).
4. Ok - RE: standalone window. I first had it that way and didn't like it - at all. It was always in the way of what I was doing and I always closed it. Then, when I wanted it, it was never there. This way, that data is always in the background, never on top of what you are doing and always there when you close a window. It really, really seemed to work much better and how you want background data to be. If I want to see it, I can close the window I am working in, or just minimize that window temporarily. No loss of current activity or train of thought. After initially having it in its own window, I find I like it much better in the background. More functional I guess is the term I would use. And, having to write the code to display it in both places, well, do you want it in 3 weeks or 3 months! 
5. Update just as your life counts do in the 3 lifer count fields at the bottom of the main window. Cool eh? Upon startup and after any sightings entry. For keyboard entry, at the end of the session. For checklist entry, at the "Add Sightings" click.

Thanks and let me know if I am missing something big with my myopic point of views.

Jeff

Hi Kevin,

You got me thinking more on #2 and #3. I think the sort order should be the following by default:

1. Date Descending (latest sightings on top) - I am interested in what I saw/entered last; I don't want to have to scroll through 70 bird sightings to see the butterfly sightings I saw/entered today.
2. TaxonomyID Descending (latest tax lists first; e.g. within the same day, birds, then butterfly sightings) - within the same day, separate birds from butterflies from reptiles, etc. don't intermingle.
3. Entry Order Descending (if you just entered 40 bird sightings for the same day - no time specified - then you will get your last entry on top; first within the groupings above)

Seems to make the most sense. Your thoughts?

Jeff