[towb]

While scanning items DL jumps to duplicates. When manually typing the ISBN I can add duplicate items without warning :-(

[Delicious Monster]

One the hardest parts of designing software is balancing automation with user intention. Auto-completion is a really good example of this. It can be really handy, but it can also quickly degenerate into wrestling with your computer, which is far more irritating than the problem the feature was intended to solve.

Duplicate handling is such a space in Delicious Library. On the one hand, we don't want to have needless duplicates. On the other hand, we don't want you to have to wrestle with the program to create a duplicate.

As such, we've taken the tack that if you scan an item you already own, you're probably trying to find that item (using the overlapping scan-to-find feature), so Delicious Library jumps to that item. On the other hand, if you take all the trouble to initiate and execute a manual lookup, we figure you're really trying to look something up, and aren't going to try to stop you.

[towb]

I will never try to find items in my library by UPC or ISBN. Nor willingly add duplicates. But that's just me.

Everything's fine when working with barcodes.

As for ISBNs, how would someone who just typed in a long number have to be a wrestler to dismiss a warning message by pressing enter?

And wouldn't adding a duplicate be far easier accomplished by first finding the existing item and then, well, duplicating it? I'm thinking of a menu item like in the Finder or "retrieve as new item" in the context menu of every product number.

[Delicious Monster]

Part of the confusion is caused by the fact scanning barcodes is an overloaded feature, meaning it has multiple purposes depending on context. Those purposes are adding an item and finding an item.

Manually adding an item, on the other hand, is not, so it would be weird behavior if Delicious Library jumped to the item, much as if typing a title in the search field would add the item if it wasn't there.

Of course, I'm not saying Delicious Library couldn't use some better duplicate handling, nor am I saying that combining search and lookup entirely wouldn't be interesting.

However, I am willing to say warning boxes are like check boxes. Everyone has one on their wishlist, and if everyone got their "just one" Delicious Library would be a mess.

But anyway, you want better and more graceful duplicate handling. Noted, and thanks.

[askbjoernhansen]

Originally Posted by Delicious Monster 

Manually adding an item, on the other hand, is not, so it would be weird behavior if Delicious Library jumped to the item, much as if typing a title in the search field would add the item if it wasn't there.

A note on the "add the new item" screen that "you already have an item with that UPC/ISBN" would be handy, no?


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