Creating connections between Events is hard

Question

Status : in discussion     Priority : Minor, #42     Schedule : (according to Project Owner)      Current state : small icons allow you to make connections graphically   Criticism on current state : Many wrong connections because of miss drawing     Objective of the change : efficient workflow     Proposed change : Improve with shortcut to open the line drawing capability     Original Author :Peter Ploß     connecting events with gates requires a steady hand, as the icons to initiate a connection are small, often don't appear, etc.     proposal: improve usability of editor  (Nino suggested to directly drop an event directly on a gate; that is not alwys possible, for example when reworking an existing fault tree.)        a parent node: FTA, line 92"

medini_1036016653 · Answer

I feel the usability to not be ideal. When I have for example disconnected gate and want to connect it to an event, I have to really use the "connect" functionality. Drag&drop only works for new objects that are dragged from the palette.     Imagine how convenient it could be to quickly sketch a tree:  ctrl+e -> creates event (possibly ctrl+e,a for AND gate, ctrl+e,o for OR gate -- multiple keys, as can be used in the script editor: ctrl+2,R allows to rename all occurences of a variable)  ctrl+g -> creates a gate  ctrl+L -> initiates link operation  ...     ref.       (motivation: Do you know VIM? Take a look at a random "cheat sheet" like http://michael.peopleofhonoronly.com/vim/ and possibly some introductory youtube video. Once fluent with some of the shortcuts you can save tremendous amounts of time...)

medini_1036016653 · Answer

Dear Joël,  thank you for your suggestions. I'll give them a whirl.  Furthermore I'll promote my wish with Krasimira and Michael during the next meeting.     (NB, I'm a fan of keyboard focused work - ANSYS medini is the COMPLETE opposite: Click everywhere - and a right-click followed by always differently looking context menus most of the time doesn't really ease the workflow.)     Best regards    Peter

medini_1024120963 · Answer

Hi Peter,      I know that unfortunately there is no key binding which allows you to create short cut for connection at the FTA editor.   Anyway there are work arounds which helped me to create connections.   My suggestion would be to drag & drop at a gate, or at the event itself.  This way the line is drawn automatically. You can not create lines between events which are connected with the same gate so easily.  If you want to have an event which already exists in your fault tree connected with another one the outline view drag & drop helps you to do that.   As this drag & drop exists and the connections are build automatically, we don't really see the benefit of having this short cut.   You can maybe discuss this with Michael and Krassi during your next meeting.      Thank you for clarifying and best regards  Joël