[pgadmin-hackers] [Design Update][History]

‘History’ is difficult to find in the lower panel. Users tended to look for it at the top of the window. We believe this might be because the lower panel includes 4 tabs - ‘Data Output’, ‘Explain’, ‘Messages’, and ‘History’ - and the grouping of the four makes it difficult to see how each is related.

We also learned that once a query within the history panel is expanded, it should be easier to switch from one query to the next.

Actions

• Rename ‘History’ to ‘Query History’

  • Provides more context on what the history will show

  • Removes confusion that ‘History’ might be showing ‘Data Output’ history

• Remove ‘Explain’ and ‘Messages’ from bottom panel

  • 4 tabs are not providing the same level of information even though they are visually displayed with the same significance

    • ‘Explain’ is more relevant in other areas, like within ‘Data Output’ or perhaps another window. It should be shown when the user actively chooses to see this view rather than be shown by default.

    • ‘Messages’ are included with data in ‘History’

  • ‘Data Output’ and ‘History’ should be grouped together because the two tabs show results based off of what was typed in the query editor

• Iterate on ‘History’ to have full query expand to side.  

  • Enables quicker browsing through the ‘Query History’

  • Example whiteboard sketch