Suggestion: UI suggestion for the "Pause" action

Some actions always seemed a bit confusing to me when I was starting out, but still to this day, some of them could be tweaked a little bit just to make more sense, whether it's a new user or someone who's been using KM for years.

Here's what I mean (red cross is the current state, green checkmarks are the 2 possible options):

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It's a very small detail, but I truly believe that these small changes (especially when we are looking at a macro with multiple actions) allows the brain to fully be focused on what's happening (and what makes sense) instead of trying to decode something that doesn't make much sense:

At this path, something exists, XYZ path

instead of
At this path, XYZ path, something exists

or
Something exists at this path: XYZ path

There are other things that I believe other actions could benefit from, but this is the one I was just working on and decided to share.


For example, the same applies here:

image

It should be:
Get file size from file XYZ to variable ABC

Something like this, even easier to follow and read:

image

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I think it is the colon after “At this path” that is throwing you. Imagine if it had a comma instead: “At this path, something exists”.

Anyway, the existing structure is surely not built around the need to provide a normal English sentence but to make sense in terms of a programming hierarchy.

image

Your first suggestion would require “something exists” to be a condition that appears in that list. Testing a path would then have to be a kind of testing for existence. It would turn the logic upside down.

The second suggestion would present no such structural problem, but would, I think, make the layout for pause until a special case with weak justification. For the user and for the programmer (less complexity, so less opportunity for bugs) it is better to be consistent.

As for the second example...

I would say that Set variable ABC from file size of file XYZ would be more natural, but again, we are not dealing with prose here but with a graphical interface that reveals the logic of the underlying program.

In any event… this is a purely theoretical discussion. :wink:

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