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Print / Print Preview not ready for prime time
bdill
Posts: 42 Bronze 2
The printing features of DTS Compare need some major overhaul. Right now it looks like the product was built and about to be released, and then somebody said "Oh my! we need to be able to print!" and slapped it in.
The following comments can be taken as a griping user that ticks you off, or as free, objective usability feedback from an independent party. I would hope that you chose the latter.
Usability Issues:
1) "Print" should be "Print" and not "Print Preview".
2) You still need "Print Preview", but as an independent option. (preferrably a button the toolbar as well.)
3) Print Preview should be independent of the print process. I should need to select a printer only after I choose to print.
4) Paging through print preview is much more difficult than it needs to be. Tiny up/down arrows just don't suffice. You need a "Previous" and "Next" button (see the print preview window in Excel). You have plenty of real estate on the toolbar to add these buttons.
5) Change the icon on the print preview window. This one is minor, but it really shows how printing was an afterthought. Even if you just reuse the DTS Compare orange envelop icon, that would much better than the default Windows form icon.
6) Rendering issues. I get alot of extra plus signs (as in expand/collapse folder) on my prints. This one isn't really a usability issue, but rather just a bug.
7) Resources. When I print/print preview, I feel as if I'm running a PII 233 with 32 MB of RAM, when I'm actually running a P4 2.0 GHz with 768 MB RAM. I can understand why server comparisons take a while, but I fail to see what is so resource intensive about printing out a 3 page grid.
Thank you for your time. I hope to see at lease a few of these improvements in future versions.
The following comments can be taken as a griping user that ticks you off, or as free, objective usability feedback from an independent party. I would hope that you chose the latter.
Usability Issues:
1) "Print" should be "Print" and not "Print Preview".
2) You still need "Print Preview", but as an independent option. (preferrably a button the toolbar as well.)
3) Print Preview should be independent of the print process. I should need to select a printer only after I choose to print.
4) Paging through print preview is much more difficult than it needs to be. Tiny up/down arrows just don't suffice. You need a "Previous" and "Next" button (see the print preview window in Excel). You have plenty of real estate on the toolbar to add these buttons.
5) Change the icon on the print preview window. This one is minor, but it really shows how printing was an afterthought. Even if you just reuse the DTS Compare orange envelop icon, that would much better than the default Windows form icon.
6) Rendering issues. I get alot of extra plus signs (as in expand/collapse folder) on my prints. This one isn't really a usability issue, but rather just a bug.
7) Resources. When I print/print preview, I feel as if I'm running a PII 233 with 32 MB of RAM, when I'm actually running a P4 2.0 GHz with 768 MB RAM. I can understand why server comparisons take a while, but I fail to see what is so resource intensive about printing out a 3 page grid.
Thank you for your time. I hope to see at lease a few of these improvements in future versions.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Yes, we're well aware of the performance issue, though. I don't have any convenient excuses for that at the moment...