Managable Patterned Contextual Lists+solution

The core thing we need to figure out is how we want the data to look.  

Regardless of what data approach we take, we probably want a super simple interface with something like "Add another File" (for the file-on-a-ticket example) that ends up creating file cards in place.  Same goes for photos in a gallery, contextual transactions, whatever.  

Sol I. One solution would be to add extra interface around the autonaming solution to make it really easy to add these cards in place.  If we go this route, the data for the files-on-a-ticket example would end up like this:

  1. MyTicket (ticket)
  2. File-001 (File)
  3. File-001+ticket (Pointer) -> My Ticket

.. and so forth.

 

 

Sol II. Another solution would be to add extra handling around the pointer approach that makes it so that each of the items gets autonamed.  If we were to keep our traditional autonaming, it might looks something like this:

 

  1. MyTicket (ticket)
  2. File-001 (File)
  3. MyTicket+myfiles -> File-001

We could, of course, consider different autonaming patterns here, for example:

  • MyTicket+myfiles+1
  • MyTicket+myfiles+File-1
  • MyTicket+MyFiles-001

It would be possible to choose a naming pattern that obviates the need for the pointer, but that has, imo, some serious costs:

  1. you can't remove items from the list (or reorder them) without renaming cards
  2. a given item can't be on two different lists
  3. you have to be careful to avoid accidentally adding items to the list by using an applicable name.

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There may be other approaches, but to me it seems like the pointer (Sol II) is so far the clearest data approach here.