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Combining Offline Lists


ciarmer

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I have been playing with Cachly functions for merging offline lists and have some questions/comments.

With respect to the Merge List function:

1) A minor point, but I find it a bit confusing when I hit the slider on list A and click on Merge Lists. I'm then presented with a list of the Offline Lists to click. I'm never sure whether I'm merging the list I started with to the list I'm about to click or the other way around. This is important since one of them will end up being merged with the other and one of them will be deleted. One improvement might be not listing the Offline list you started with since clicking it would only merge a list with itself (also see (2) below).

2) Another small issue, but this actually happened to me - I had one list left and noticed a bunch of duplicates. I took a chance and decided to merge that list with itself, thinking that might somehow eliminate all of the duplicates. The result was that the app worked for a little while and then ended up deleting the only offline list, leaving me with no offline list at all. Clearly my mistake but it was a bit of an unintended result. Perhaps some warning that you're about to delete the only offline list you have should be displayed?

3) I had anticipated that Merging two offline lists would result in a single offline list which contains a combination of the caches in the two lists, with no duplicates. Rules would need to be established on the attributes of the single cache that replaces all the duplicates. As it stands, it seems the Copy Caches function does the same thing as the Merge Lists function except the Copy Caches function doesn't delete the resulting empty list, but you still end up with duplicates in the resulting combined list. I think I understand the reason for the different Merge vs. Copy functions (i.e. the preservation of the resulting empty list). In my opinion, the elimination of duplicates, using some logical rules would be very valuable.

4) I also saw a post or two that referred to the ability to update cache data on a subset of caches in an offline list. I haven't been able to figure out how to do that because I can't seem to find the search functionality that would result in a subset of the offline list.

 

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3 hours ago, ciarmer said:

One improvement might be not listing the Offline list you started with since clicking it would only merge a list with itself (also see (2) below).

This is a good idea. Will fix this.

3 hours ago, ciarmer said:

2) Another small issue, but this actually happened to me - I had one list left and noticed a bunch of duplicates. I took a chance and decided to merge that list with itself, thinking that might somehow eliminate all of the duplicates. The result was that the app worked for a little while and then ended up deleting the only offline list, leaving me with no offline list at all. Clearly my mistake but it was a bit of an unintended result. Perhaps some warning that you're about to delete the only offline list you have should be displayed?

I think removing the option to merge a list with itself is the clear choice here. I think that should solve the issue you had?

3 hours ago, ciarmer said:

3) I had anticipated that Merging two offline lists would result in a single offline list which contains a combination of the caches in the two lists, with no duplicates. Rules would need to be established on the attributes of the single cache that replaces all the duplicates. As it stands, it seems the Copy Caches function does the same thing as the Merge Lists function except the Copy Caches function doesn't delete the resulting empty list, but you still end up with duplicates in the resulting combined list. I think I understand the reason for the different Merge vs. Copy functions (i.e. the preservation of the resulting empty list). In my opinion, the elimination of duplicates, using some logical rules would be very valuable.

In 2.0.1 copying and merging DOES remove duplicates. We do a check between the two lists and if we find a duplicate, we only keep the newest one. Matching is done on the unique GC code.

3 hours ago, ciarmer said:

4) I also saw a post or two that referred to the ability to update cache data on a subset of caches in an offline list. I haven't been able to figure out how to do that because I can't seem to find the search functionality that would result in a subset of the offline list.

Yes, this is possible by viewing the offline list, then tapping the ... button and choosing the Update Caches option.

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9 hours ago, Nic Hubbard said:

I think removing the option to merge a list with itself is the clear choice here. I think that should solve the issue you had?

Yes.

In 2.0.1 copying and merging DOES remove duplicates. We do a check between the two lists and if we find a duplicate, we only keep the newest one. Matching is done on the unique GC code.

Sounds great. I didn't realize that 2.0.1 came had come out and that this was one of the fixes.

Yes, this is possible by viewing the offline list, then tapping the ... button and choosing the Update Caches option.

Thanks!

 

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  • 1 month later...

I just tried merging, and found that merging a list with itself still deletes the list. I really don't think that should be possible; doesn't make sense, not intuitive. I just lost a list through merging it with itself...?  If you select a list to merge (via swipe & options) then the 'list of lists' shouldn't include that list you've already chosen. You could multi-select others, or choose one to merge it with.

 

Actually... there are two methods I see here.  Wanting to merge a list into another, and wanting to merge multiple lists together.

1. If you select a select to merge, first impression is that I'm merging this list into another - meaning I'd expect to select one other one to merge it into, not multiple.

2. If I select Merge first, before choosing a list, then I would expect I would be able to multi-select a number of lists to merge together. At that point I'd either want to create a new list of those selected lists, or choose a single destination list into which the selected would merge.

 

Might I also suggest: Instead of just "+" in the corner, make it the "..." with options, such as "Create/New/+", "Merge", "Sort", etc.  (on that note, Sort would set a sort method for the list which would override custom sorting which is nice, and vice versa :P)

When creating a new list, that could also be a launching point to jump over to Bookmark List downloading, or PQ downloading, instead of just creating a new empty list.

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3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

I just tried merging, and found that merging a list with itself still deletes the list. I really don't think that should be possible; doesn't make sense, not intuitive. I just lost a list through merging it with itself...?  If you select a list to merge (via swipe & options) then the 'list of lists' shouldn't include that list you've already chosen. You could multi-select others, or choose one to merge it with.

This is a bug that we have on our list to fix in 2.1. It for sure wasn't intentional. :)

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