It's not a bug, but a feature. The inbox does not "refresh" itself, instead it relies upon hitting the refresh button. This isn't a big deal, but requires some knowledge, so you don't review the same results ! I recently realized that when I keep switching around reviewing my Inbox in many different locations (computers), I have, on occasion, reviewed the same documents more than once. Scenario. Let's say you only have 1 item in your inbox. Go to another computer and pull up the inbox there. So you now have the 1 item in the inbox on computer # 1 and 2. Go to computer #1 and review the document and save by"File with changes". Computer #1 inbox is now empty. Go to computer #2, your inbox will still show 1 item in the inbox (the one you just filed on the other computer). The smart man will hit the refresh button before reviewing new documents. However, if you don't and you type in some metadata for the item in the inbox, your "second review" metadata will be saved over top of the first data. Just an FYI. Q: Would it be a bad thing to have the INBOX refresh itself every minute ?
[quote user="Graham"] Something to consider ... If tab inbox is open, refresh every minute ... and lose current changes [] [/quote] Ahh... that is a problem. Must train self. Must hit refresh. How about if idle in the Inbox for 10 minutes a dialog box appears [ Refresh Inbox ? [yes] [cancel] ] ? Must train self. Must hit refresh. Must train self. Must hit refresh. Ok. I think i'll remember now.
I'd still like for the clients to refresh automatically every x minutes. They do refresh after filing a result.
This is all about reducing the bandwidth for those on dial up and other slow connections. At times I need to travel to other cities to conduct clinics, and I'm on a slow wireless connection, about 128k back to my server. I don't want any unnecessary network activity.
Well then set it at 10 minutes ! or 0 minutes ! (ie. No Auto Refresh, Manual only). or when "almost idle" for 5 minutes ... or .. there are lots of options here. The reason I want refreshing is (1) It still feels odd for me to go to a client in a different room after cleaning my inbox and seeing 30 items. Of course I hit refresh and they are all gone but ... in the beginning I actually did the items twice sometimes. I don't know if that can impact data integrity. (2) The lack of refreshing turns what could be a peppy real time inbox data center to a static listing of some items. I'm not saying we should turn the INBOX into an email like system but Synapse's strength is it's ability to communicate quickly and effectively between the server and the clients and it should be promoted wherever possible. Optimizing Synapse for antiquated bandwidth situations isn't the answer. If the client's themselves had a setting how often (if at all) to refresh themselves, then you could set remote clients in odd low bandwidth situations to never refresh and if you had a LAN bandwidth situation, the clients could refresh every minute.
How could it be *that* wasteful. I hit [Refresh] and the popup is faster than instantaneous. Something that easy once every 10 minutes is wasteful ? YOU DO have the highest code standards I know !
Polling is wasteful because the client sends a request every few minutes looking for something when it can just as easily be told that something is there when it happens. You're suggesting that the client does an expensive sql query every few minutes or so. But all of these requests add up and require more and more resources. My proposed solution is that when someone adds a result that is going to your inbox, the server will just send you a message that some new results are available.
Expensive ? Synapse does it faster than I can imagine ! Of course that is ideal. But that might be hard to do. I just wanted to automate the [Refresh] method, as I saw it requiring very little resources from my end user point of view. Even when I refresh my INBOX from empty to 50 items, the screen populates as fast as I have ever seen a program populate.
I just consider it important that we do things the right and economical way ... not to waste server and network resources.
I just tried it now. Started up another PC logged in as me, and then on my PC added a result. Instantly the Inbox refresh button turned red on the other PC to indicate that new results were available.
Can we choose a different colour ? I'd try to go forthemes Red = may be destructive, use with caution (often followed by a "Are you sure?" message) Yellow = archiving functions Green = not sure how we are using green, Orange = "New Information, press here" ! (ie. for the Refresh Button). Constantly hitting the Red refresh button, gives the users the impression that routine, non-destructive tasks are accomplished with Red Buttons. I say we reserve Red for buttons that need to be used with caution.
In deference to our colour blind colleagues, I should not be using green and red on the same screen. But ... Red = destructive, or an alert Gold = reversible actions Green = default action from a choice of buttons Brown = [Foward All] button - rarely used. Ok, does someone want to expand upon this schema that is currrently in use. Most of the time when I have new email, something flashes up red because it supposed to catch my attention. What to do about alternatives to red/green combinations?
Gold is also second choice to green .. as in traffic lights. You proceed when it is green, but sometimes you also proceed when it is gold/yellow.
I don't think we need to factor in the colour blind users because they've developed a more finely tuned "think before you click" strategy from making errors previously.
I've changed the color to Green to alert you that there are new results available ... not that I imagine anyone would think that Refresh is a destructive action. I quite like the use of color because it easily leads me to the right next action in a sea of buttons. I.e. I can use my hind brain instead of my frontal lobes.
LOL. Freeing up the frontal lobes to do some higher thinking while you are chatting with the patient is a good thing.
The lack of AUTO refreshing is manageable but it ruins the real time feel the INBOX should have. I know through reviewing things I have already reviewed to hit the [Refresh] button, but I still dont think the end user should have to hit Refresh.
The problems you experience are because you are working on your Inbox on more than one PC. If your inbox has new data, the [refresh] button changes color to brown currently. Imagine that you're working on something .. a new inbox item arrives, and the inbox refreshes. This leads automatically to switching to the first patient in the inbox. That would be unpleasant having Synapse switch patients on you.
