[Rt-devel] Dashboards and other new features

[Shawn M Moore]

On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 01:15:36AM -0400, David Blank-Edelman wrote:
> Hi Shawn-
> 
> On Jun 25, 2008, at 1:21 PM, Shawn M Moore wrote:
> 
> >Todd's one-line summary is exactly right. A dashboard is a named,  
> >shared
> >collection of saved searches that RT can email you whenever you want.
> 
> Can I ask you a naive question? Why do you call them dashboards?

I originally called them "email reports", which is too generic to be
interesting. Someone else came up with the name dashboard and we agreed
that it wasn't entirely wrong.

> As described they don't sound much like any of the dashboards people  
> generally interact with (when was the last time your car sent you mail  
> as a way of interacting with it?). I understand one could construct  
> one's own personal heads-up display (which is more like a dashboard),  
> but the timed emailing of the data is where the analogue seems to  
> break down hard.

The emailing part is secondary. I really like that you can bookmark a
dashboard and get a customized display with only a few clicks. Sure the
analogy isn't perfect but I think it's good enough. :)

> I'm just wondering if this nomenclature will get in the way of people  
> understanding and appreciating just how cool they are.

Now that there's a Dashboards portlet I hope people will try them so
they can be more productive.

>       -- dNb

Shawn