MLS Save Button

Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
lajackson
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#1

Post by lajackson »

One thing that has always intrigued me: If you click on Save in a popup box, do you also have to click on the Save button along the blue border at the bottom of the tabbed screen? If there was not a popup box, you do, or you will lose the information. But if there was a popup box, I do not think you have to.

I click on both just to be sure, but it is a duplication.


[Alan_Brown: Moved this new topic to a new thread from this post.]
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aebrown
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#2

Post by aebrown »

lajackson wrote:One thing that has always intrigued me: If you click on Save in a popup box, do you also have to click on the Save button along the blue border at the bottom of the tabbed screen? If there was not a popup box, you do, or you will lose the information. But if there was a popup box, I do not think you have to.
Can you give an example? There are very few Save buttons in the blue border at the bottom of the tabbed screen in MLS, and of those I can find, none have a popup. I must admit that I haven't done an exhaustive search, but it would be nice if you could give a specific example.

What is much more common is that there is a Close button, and the only way to save changes is to click Close, then you are given the Don't Save/Save/Cancel confirmation dialog. In such a case, it's obvious you have to choose Save or you will lose your changes. In some of these cases (System Options is an example), there is a Save and a Close button, but even if you neglect to hit the Save button, you are prompted to save changes if you have made changes and hit the Close button.

On the other hand, if there is a place where you would lose changes by neglecting to Save, but there is no confirmation dialog, that would be a poor interface. But I know of no such situation.
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aebrown
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#3

Post by aebrown »

Alan_Brown wrote:On the other hand, if there is a place where you would lose changes by neglecting to Save, but there is no confirmation dialog, that would be a poor interface. But I know of no such situation.
One thing that can happen that is a bit confusing is caused by MLS's multi-tab interface. You can make some changes to one tab, then switch to another tab while those changes are still pending. No confirmation prompt will happen until you try to close that tab. You can even begin to Exit MLS or Log Off, at which point if you have unsaved changes you will get the confirmation dialog. What is confusing is that you have no context to know which tab has unsaved changes.

What is even stranger is that as you exit/log off you might be prompted for an automatic backup, make the backup, and then be prompted to save your unsaved changes. That means that the backup occurs before the changes are saved. This is the wrong order, particularly if the pending changes affect finances -- the saved backup will not contain those last changes, but since MLS required a backup and you made the backup, you have a false sense of security that all your changes are backed up.

But in any case, it's not a good habit to switch to other tabs with pending changes, so hopefully this doesn't happen much.
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Mikerowaved
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#4

Post by Mikerowaved »

...and unlike the financial side, the membership side doesn't get a reminder when trying to log off that there are changes pending to be submitted to CHQ and that a send/receive is recommended first.
So we can better help you, please edit your Profile to include your general location.
lajackson
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#5

Post by lajackson »

Alan_Brown wrote:Can you give an example? There are very few Save buttons in the blue border at the bottom of the tabbed screen in MLS, and of those I can find, none have a popup. I must admit that I haven't done an exhaustive search, but it would be nice if you could give a specific example.
As you assign each user to a membership record, you are asked to save. When you are done, there is still a Save button in the blue border at the bottom of the screen. Does it matter whether or not you click on it?
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mkmurray
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#6

Post by mkmurray »

Mikerowaved wrote:...and unlike the financial side, the membership side doesn't get a reminder when trying to log off that there are changes pending to be submitted to CHQ and that a send/receive is recommended first.
Right, there is no popup reminder to Send/Receive pending changes when you log out but it does create an Urgent Task; however, Urgent Tasks don't pop up until when you log on...
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aebrown
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#7

Post by aebrown »

Mikerowaved wrote:...and unlike the financial side, the membership side doesn't get a reminder when trying to log off that there are changes pending to be submitted to CHQ and that a send/receive is recommended first.
mkmurray wrote:Right, there is no popup reminder to Send/Receive pending changes when you log out but it does create an Urgent Task; however, Urgent Tasks don't pop up until when you log on...

This thread deals with saving changes on a dialog/tab basis, and has nothing to do with transmission of changes. So the above seems like a new topic, although I suppose it is obliquely related.
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aebrown
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#8

Post by aebrown »

lajackson wrote:As you assign each user to a membership record, you are asked to save. When you are done, there is still a Save button in the blue border at the bottom of the screen. Does it matter whether or not you click on it?

Ah, that is a good example. For the Users panel on the System Options tab, the answer is no, you don't need to click the Save button at the bottom; once you have saved a user (either a new user just added, or changes made to an existing user), those changes are indeed saved. The same is true for the Unit and Members panels. The reason there is a Save button on System Options is that there are other panels, namely System, Finances, User Options, and Printing, for which the only way to save changes made to those panels is to use the Save button (or to click Close and have MLS prompt you for the changes).

But you don't really need to worry about losing such changes if you adopt the habit of closing the tab. If there are any unsaved changes, MLS will prompt you to save the changes when you click Close. But as you say, it will never hurt to click Save if you have any worries.
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#9

Post by jbh001 »

Alan_Brown wrote:One thing that can happen that is a bit confusing is caused by MLS's multi-tab interface.
I think it would be nice if MLS adopted the multi-tab convention used by the FireFox browser, where each tab has an "X" to close that tab. When that "X" is clicked, MLS could then have a pop-up (when necessary) prompting to save changes, discard, changes, or cancel and leave the tab open.
lajackson
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#10

Post by lajackson »

jbh001 wrote:I think it would be nice if MLS adopted the multi-tab convention used by the FireFox browser, where each tab has an "X" to close that tab. When that "X" is clicked, MLS could then have a pop-up (when necessary) prompting to save changes, discard, changes, or cancel and leave the tab open.
Actually, the Close button at the bottom right does close just the tab that is open. I do not recall if it requires a Save at that point or if the Saves are all saved up for the millenium, er, final closing of MLS. But the Close at the bottom right is the same as the X on the tab in a multi-tabbed FireFox browser.
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