In the past it would have been confusing to add a way to directly
enable/disable a phase in the phases table because it was in the middle
of the form. So we would have had next to each other controls that don't
do anything until the form is sent and controls which modify the
database immediately. That's why we couldn't add the checkboxes we used
when using the wizard.
Now the phases aren't on the same page as the budget form, so we can
edit them independently. We're using a switch, so it's consistent with
the way we enable/disable features. We could have used checkboxes, but
with checkboxes, users expect they aren't changing anything until they
click on a button to send the form, so we'd have to add a button, and it
might be missed since we're going to add "buttons" for headings and
groups to this page which won't send a form but will be links.
Since we're changing the element with JavaScript after an AJAX call, we
need a way to find the button we're changing. The easiest way is adding
an ID attribute to all admin actions buttons/links.
So now there's no need to edit each phase individually to enable/disable
them.
We aren't doing the same thing in the form to edit a budget because we
aren't sure about possible usability issues. On one hand, in some tables
we automatically update records when we mark a checkbox, so users might
expect that. On the other hand, having a checkbox in the middle of a
form which updates the database automatically is counter-intuitive,
particularly when right below that table there are other checkboxes
which don't update the database until the form is submitted.
So, either way, chances are users would think they've updated the phases
(or kept them intact) while the opposite would be true.
In the form within the wizard to create a budget that problem isn't that
important because there aren't any other fields in the form and it's
pretty intuitive that what users do will have no effect until they press
the "Finish" button.
Co-Authored-By: Julian Nicolas Herrero <microweb10@gmail.com>
