TouchDown

I have a significant number of custom rules (17 right now), and managing them is a pain.

In particular, usually when I want to add a new rule, I need to position it near the top, after 8 other rules and before the last 9, because the order of evaluation matters.

But when I add a new rule, it shows up at the bottom, and it is really painful to move it up. I have to long press on the rule, wait one second (that's one thousand milliseconds, but who's counting?!), select Move up, and then repeat that 9+ times. It's kind of a pain.

For example, I just added a test rule at the bottom (some other rules partially redacted):

Is there a better way to do this? I'd hoped this would get better in Venus, but it's the same. (Not surprising, really. There are a lot more important core UI issues to work on).

Then I figured, "Oh, I can just try editting the settings XML file by hand. Reordering these shouldn't be too bad."

But I can't figure out how rules are stored; windroid.db.set's XML looks like it's encoded in some special way:

<Rule>
  <RuleName>AHtJHBcOIAkaBSwdQ1FfXFZf</RuleName>
  <RuleDescription>ABkBERxPFxARASwNFxJTX1dZIAUCIUlAABESNgkaCxcFQkgNEAoEWTEGCwcG</RuleDescription>
  <RuleID>409343803</RuleID>
  <StringRep>ABkBERxPFxARASwNFxJTX1dZIAUCIUlAABESNgkaCxcFQkgNEAoEWTEGCwcG</StringRep>

It doesn't seem to be base64 or base62; Decoding as base64 comes out as gibberish:

{I     ,CQ_\V_⎻␉3:4-12-16 ┘␤▒┬┐

Are they encrypted with some token key?

Is there a better way? I suppose I could just assume the rules are in the same order and try reordering them "blind"?

Thanks.

Hi,

To clarify- you are requesting we add a module to order rules so users can set rule priority, etc? I'll pass that along to our feature request list, as I think that's a valid recommendation for folks who use rules extensively.

You are requesting we add a module to order rules so users can set rule priority, etc?

Not quite, no. A new module is not required.

We can already reorder the rules, it's just that UI for doing so is painful: long press for one second, select Move Up, and repeat 17 times.

The request is for a better UI. One method would be to change the paradigm completely -- a long press that would let you drag an item to its final position. But that makes it hard to have a menu on the item. Or perhaps a "Move" choice in the menu that then lets you drag the item into position.

Or maybe just a draggable section (different texture) one area of each item that you could drag instantly to reposition.

Or even just changing it to add a "Move to Top" choice along with Move Up, Move Down. That would handle 90% of the use case.

Another choice would be to add Up/Down buttons to each item, or at the bottom next to New/Close while allowing you to select an item and then tap the new up button repeatedly. (Though 17 clicks gets old fast, even without the long pressing).

It seems like there are a million ways for your UI designers to solve this problem, I'd just like something.

No info on manually editing the settings backup file?

Hi,

No info yet on editing the file, although I passed on the request to our UX team for consideration. A move to top seems like a very workable fix they could do quickly.

Thanks.

I just did this today (added a new rule) and realized I omitted a pain point from my narrative.

For each move, it is a LONG PRESS (for one second), a Move Up button, and then the screen resets to the top (instead of keeping the selected item in focus), which means you have to scroll all the way down from the top. At first it's a consistent "scroll to the bottom" but then after it makes it above one screen, you have to scroll to find it, which involves a visual search.

So in addition to everything else, after an item is moved, it should not change the scrolling/focus of the list.

(This is a problem in some other places in the Touchdown UI, like viewing a conversation of messages.)

Thanks.

Sure, I'll pass this along to our rules revamp discussion. Thanks!