Add a notes section for each trigger action

Product suggestions
#1

Hey All,

Software best practice dictates that we should be documenting in software what each block of logic is doing, ideally on a line by line basis.

We are looking to carry this best practice over to tulip, but there is pretty limited functionality when it comes to adding notes to our trigger logic.

The name of the trigger is the only field where we can note what that trigger is doing. We have developed a process of splitting actions into many different triggers so we can get granular enough with this title, but often there are still cases where I find myself wondering why did I decide I needed to zero out this value in this trigger? It would be great if we could optionally add a note for every action on a trigger.

Does anyone else think this would be valuable?
Peter

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#2

Hey Peter, I think this is a great idea and I’d like to see what other people think as well.

Our current plan is that rather than add more UI on top of the existing triggers UI, we want to redo that entire trigger creation experience. But, we can always reconsider that.
Reasons:

  1. The small section for triggers in the Context Pane on the right side of the screen is fundamentally limiting. Not much screen real estate.
  2. When triggers pop up in a modal. it implies that there should not be that many trigger actions. But, we know of many cases where there are 50+ trigger actions and the user needs to scroll a lot.
  3. Having every trigger action documented via a series of dropdowns makes it hard to follow. It would be much easier if there were more visual cues to show what the logic is actually doing.
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#3

Hey Kevin,

I have heard about the separation of trigger logic from each individual trigger. I love this idea. I guess my ask would be in that future state where they are separate, add more ability to document.

  1. I agree that the content pane is probably not the right place to have this information. We really want the comments tied to each of the actions the trigger does
  2. We actively avoid 50 action single triggers for this very reason (along with some stability issues we have had). In my opinion, most triggers shouldn’t be more than 10 actions. 1 trigger does 1 thing has been our mentality when building app logic. If you have to say “and” while describing what it does, it should be separated.
  3. UI wise, this is a little bit of a challenge. Ultimately in most cases I dont need a comment to understand why that line is required, its the 10% that I really need that feature and dont have it that are a pain. Here is what im thinking:
    image
    image1393Ă—669 89.6 KB

    Not an impediment in those 90% of cases, but available in the other 10%

Thoughts?
Peter

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#4

Yes, I definitely agree that the comments need to be contextual. To me, this is another reason that trigger editing should be a full screen experience- you would have the trigger logic on the left 2/3 side of the screen, and the right 1/3rd of the screen would be dedicated to comments that would appear whenever you clicked an individual trigger action. Some of these comments would get long.

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#5

All of this sounds good. Comments are sorely needed. I like Peter’s mockup, but a reworked trigger experience sounds like it would be beneficial too - agreed on the small real estate on the right pane not being enough for displaying triggers (especially since the names are often long due to the lack of comments…).

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