Deleting job files in the LS

Darren Clemons

Well-Known Member
First of, I'll admit I don't keep the jobs in my LS "cleaned out" as good as I should. We do a lot of jobs in a short amount of time, some big ones that stay in the LS for weeks and many "quickies" where we're in/out in a matter of hours.
I try and clean up and archive once every week - two weeks at the most, but the last three or four weeks we've been so busy it's slipped on me.
Anyway, here's my question. When deleting many jobs at once, could there not become an option to "delete multiple jobs", the same way we can "archive multiple projects"?
When I accumulate 15 to 20 jobs, I can select them one at a time and archive them all at once but then to go back and delete each job, after archiving, I have to delete them one at a time. Very slow process.
Like I admitted, if I just keep it cleaned out regularly this isn't a problem, but I've also got two other LS's and those guys NEVER clean theirs out :( so when it comes time there sometimes are tons of jobs piled up in those.
Just seems like maybe the exact same screen process as is used in selecting multiple jobs for archiving could be used for deleting.
 

John Evers

Well-Known Member
5PLS
Darren,

Your post made me smile for a few reasons.

I am sure we all would have liked to have had that problem back in the 2008-2010 era. If I remember correctly, we did not have enough jobs going at one time to have to worry about deleting old jobs files.

Also...Why is it that "the other guys" never seem to care as much as the owner?

I would like to see added under Files/Delete Files/ a new button to be added that brings up the multi select interface, with the job names listed, so that check marks could be added for selections of job names. Then press delete, followed by a "are you sure" message, and you could then go refill your coffee cup.
 

Darren Clemons

Well-Known Member
Darren,

Your post made me smile for a few reasons.

I am sure we all would have liked to have had that problem back in the 2008-2010 era. If I remember correctly, we did not have enough jobs going at one time to have to worry about deleting old jobs files.

Also...Why is it that "the other guys" never seem to care as much as the owner?

I would like to see added under Files/Delete Files/ a new button to be added that brings up the multi select interface, with the job names listed, so that check marks could be added for selections of job names. Then press delete, followed by a "are you sure" message, and you could then go refill your coffee cup.
Yes....we are (myself in particular) are becoming quite a spoiled bunch with all that this LS will do. Poor me spending 5 minutes clicking delete 20 times and I want it faster ;)
 

Darren Clemons

Well-Known Member
Hi guys, we have had this ability for sometime. Select "Multi-select actions" from the context menu of the manage projects screen and then select the project you wish to delete and then "Delete selected projects" from the context menu.
Well that sure takes care of that!
There's just not much any of us can even think of anymore that this little beauty won't already do.
 

Jim Frame

Well-Known Member
I'd never deleted a project until just now. The only option I saw was on Files|Delete Files|Delete All Projects (except current). On what page are you finding the option to delete selected projects?

P.S. This ought to be in the User Guide somewhere, but I wasn't able to find it by searching on "delete."
 

Matt Johnson

Well-Known Member
5PLS
I'd never deleted a project until just now. The only option I saw was on Files|Delete Files|Delete All Projects (except current). On what page are you finding the option to delete selected projects?

Collect or Stake>Project>Open Project from List
 

John Evers

Well-Known Member
5PLS
Jim,

I can not disagree with your request.

I have been using the red X in the open job screen for so long, that it just seems natural to me. I am one of those guys that only keep four or five jobs on my LS at any one time. I always create archives of my projects, and save them to my PC.
 

Jim Frame

Well-Known Member
In my view this is a problem that permeates the LS user interface: functions are unintentionally hidden behind unrelated functions.

"What do you want to do?"
"I want to delete a project."
"Okay, go to the Collect screen."
"But I don't want to collect, I want to delete a project."
"I know, but you have to go to the Collect screen first."
"Okay, I'm at the Collect screen, but I don't see a Delete Project button."
"You have to click on the project name button first."
Etc.
 

Nate The Surveyor

Well-Known Member
Jim Frame, above is right. I had to ASK about how to delete projects too. Then, I forgot... because it is simply "hid in the wrong place".
Another thing, is while DELETING projects, hold down the delete, and it will delete ALL projects. There is only one "are you sure" for that. I think it should have 2, and should be a bit more explicit....
 

Patrick Garner

Active Member
Software issues like these always come from updates. JAVAD on the one hand should be complimented for constant updates based on user input. On the other hand, the software guys have to be cognizant of creating snarls like this. Might not be such a bad idea to have several locations for file deletion. Add where Shawn suggests, and leave it where it presently exists so that long-time users don't get confused.
 

Jim Frame

Well-Known Member
I hope it's clear that I'm not griping, I'm simply sharing my thoughts on ways to improve the system. This application is so complicated and delightfully flexible that it's not reasonable to expect perfection at this point. But if users don't express the problems they encounter, the developers can't be expected to catch them all.
 

Darren Clemons

Well-Known Member
In my view this is a problem that permeates the LS user interface: functions are unintentionally hidden behind unrelated functions.

"What do you want to do?"
"I want to delete a project."
"Okay, go to the Collect screen."
"But I don't want to collect, I want to delete a project."
"I know, but you have to go to the Collect screen first."
"Okay, I'm at the Collect screen, but I don't see a Delete Project button."
"You have to click on the project name button first."
Etc.
I agree completely with Jim here....sort of like how I never understood why in Windows, you have to click on the "start" button to shut down or restart the computer. Myself and all the guys in our company (we're small...only five of us total) have talked about this in detail many times.

While there's only five of us, we have three complete systems of T1M- LS combos. All five of us use the LS on any given day and I have always enjoyed taking on the challenge of learning everything I can about all of our different systems over the years and for the most part, being the "troubleshooter" in our outfit.

Without a doubt, this LS is nothing like anything any of us have ever used before. The features, abilities and depth of all that it will do is, as far as I can see, unparalleled. That being said, it's also the most challenging thing to learn to use and/or teach others to use that probably any of us have ever seen.

Because of things like what Jim says, I've probably written out about a dozen tutorials for our company in the last two years for the most important and daily used features/functions. It's extremely difficult to remember the "paths" that it takes to get to a certain location so I take screen shots of page by page and put them together in a step by step guide...

For instance, I started trying to use the "real time position shift" function a couple weeks back and while a very, very good feature have found different positives and negatives of when/where to use it.
The issue though in showing the crews where to find that feature was where it's at. From the home screen, select "setup"(??), "edit" (the top left edit by the way as there are three different edit buttons on this page) and then select "advanced". I somewhat understand it being hidden four screen deep starting with the setup icon but maybe something as significant as this could have its own individual icon?

Obviously, we can't have separate icons for everything the LS does, but I think adding additional "pages" to the home screen would be the simplest way to add many more icons. There is currently only two screens, why not add a couple more and put icons of several more key "hidden" features on additional pages? Maybe, we, the users, could chime in on different ones we'd like to see added. Would be similar to your phone, the more apps you add you just get more "pages" of screens to scroll through. I believe that would be much easier than having to go 3/4/5 screens deep looking for one particular function. While admittedly, scrolling through 4 or 5 home screens might be difficult, once you "see" the icon it's much easier to remember than having to specifically remember: home screen, setup, edit, advanced.....etc....etc...

Another option to open up much more flexibility would be, again an iPhone feature, is to allow "pop ups" by holding down an icon on the home screen. Almost all the iPhone apps now allow you to see many different choices within the app simply by holding it down. I'm not sure how or if that could possibly be implemented into the LS screen but it's just a thought....

What's great is, the only reason we've went down this road in this thread is because of the fact of just how much the LS will do! It's simply impossible to put every selection and every function right in front of us - there's just too much there. However, I do believe there are some things that could be made easier to find and the only ones who can suggest them are us, the people who use it every day.
 

Adam

Well-Known Member
5PLS
I agree completely with Jim here....sort of like how I never understood why in Windows, you have to click on the "start" button to shut down or restart the computer. Myself and all the guys in our company (we're small...only five of us total) have talked about this in detail many times.

While there's only five of us, we have three complete systems of T1M- LS combos. All five of us use the LS on any given day and I have always enjoyed taking on the challenge of learning everything I can about all of our different systems over the years and for the most part, being the "troubleshooter" in our outfit.

Without a doubt, this LS is nothing like anything any of us have ever used before. The features, abilities and depth of all that it will do is, as far as I can see, unparalleled. That being said, it's also the most challenging thing to learn to use and/or teach others to use that probably any of us have ever seen.

Because of things like what Jim says, I've probably written out about a dozen tutorials for our company in the last two years for the most important and daily used features/functions. It's extremely difficult to remember the "paths" that it takes to get to a certain location so I take screen shots of page by page and put them together in a step by step guide...

For instance, I started trying to use the "real time position shift" function a couple weeks back and while a very, very good feature have found different positives and negatives of when/where to use it.
The issue though in showing the crews where to find that feature was where it's at. From the home screen, select "setup"(??), "edit" (the top left edit by the way as there are three different edit buttons on this page) and then select "advanced". I somewhat understand it being hidden four screen deep starting with the setup icon but maybe something as significant as this could have its own individual icon?

Obviously, we can't have separate icons for everything the LS does, but I think adding additional "pages" to the home screen would be the simplest way to add many more icons. There is currently only two screens, why not add a couple more and put icons of several more key "hidden" features on additional pages? Maybe, we, the users, could chime in on different ones we'd like to see added. Would be similar to your phone, the more apps you add you just get more "pages" of screens to scroll through. I believe that would be much easier than having to go 3/4/5 screens deep looking for one particular function. While admittedly, scrolling through 4 or 5 home screens might be difficult, once you "see" the icon it's much easier to remember than having to specifically remember: home screen, setup, edit, advanced.....etc....etc...

Another option to open up much more flexibility would be, again an iPhone feature, is to allow "pop ups" by holding down an icon on the home screen. Almost all the iPhone apps now allow you to see many different choices within the app simply by holding it down. I'm not sure how or if that could possibly be implemented into the LS screen but it's just a thought....

What's great is, the only reason we've went down this road in this thread is because of the fact of just how much the LS will do! It's simply impossible to put every selection and every function right in front of us - there's just too much there. However, I do believe there are some things that could be made easier to find and the only ones who can suggest them are us, the people who use it every day.
Darren, you can get to the real time position shift using the point/line/trajectory/shift black box button in collect also. It's a little quicker.
 
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