Inline Sets is working different than I expected

WHAT IS THE BUG

This is not really a bug, nor a FR, as Inline Sets so far work great, just a message to share that I (maybe wrongly) expected something else from the behavior of Inline Sets.

HOW TO REPRODUCE IT

  1. Open an Object,
  2. Add an Inline Set,
  3. Change the name of the Inline Set,
  4. Now open the Set you chose as source for your Inline Set,
  5. See that the name is changed, there, too.

THE EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

For some reason, I was expecting that the Inline Set would be its own representation of a Set, and not what it actually says on the tin (a Set, but then inline). I’m sharing this as others might also expect the Inline Set to be a new Set to be created on the fly either from scratch (with + Create new set) or as a duplicate based on an existing Set.

The main reason that I expected this to work as a copy is that you might want to have a similar Inline Set in multiple Objects. If you would need to create either a new “full” Set or Set View for every Object (if they indeed need to be different, even if only slightly like a filter set differently) it would lead to many Sets and many Set Views which could clutter the “Sets” tab on the dashboard really quickly.

SYSTEM INFORMATION

  • OS:
    Windows 11
  • Device:
    Dell XPS 15
  • Anytype Version:
    0.30.2-beta

ADDITIONAL CONTEXT

It might make this slightly more obvious if the “+ Create new set” option is shown at the top of the list instead of the bottom:

2 Likes

I agree. I expected the name of the inline sets to be different than the source set itslef

Thanks! Good to hear I’m not the only one expecting the name to be copied from the source set but not linked to it.

@ignatovv shared an explanation of Inline Sets with me:

Inline sets sync name and object filter (aka source) from the original set. And it copies the views.
If you want to tweak the views in different objects you just link the same set everywhere and change the views.

I’m marking it as resolved, but I won’t close it yet as there might be others that want to pitch in on this discussion.

2 Likes

I’m a bit confused. firstly, how can we link a set? you mean like linking an object? and how is that relavent to inline sets?

and secondly, right now we can have different views for inline sets separate from the source set but didn’t you mean to have the control over the name of the inline set too?

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  1. You can create an Inline set in an Object and then choose a source set from which the “query” and name are linked to the source set (i.e., change the name or Source Type/Relation in the Source Set to change the name or Source Type/Relation of any Inline Sets linked to that Source Set)
  2. When creating an inline set, the views that already exist in the Source Set are copied to the Inline Set, but they are not linked to the Source Set:
    1. If you change for example a view in the Source Set from Grid to List, it won’t reflect in the Inline Set and vice versa
    2. If you change for example a filter in a view in the Source Set to not show Tasks marked Done, it won’t reflect in the Inline Set and vice versa
    3. If you change the Type of your Source Set from Task to Human, it will reflect in all Inline Sets that are based on that original Task Set.
    4. Indeed, I did not expect that if you change the name of an Inline Set, you also change the name of the Source Set that Inline Set is linked to.

@ignatovv correct me if I’m wrong :slight_smile:

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your 4th item of the second list; I agree. It would be nice to be able to change the name of the inline set separate to the source set.

2 Likes

Hello everyone :nerd_face:. For the first release we decided to stick with current behaviour.
The main reason we want a title to be in sync with source set is use case of creating a new set from inline.

  • Create new inline set
  • Press create new set button
  • Select proper query for set for example type Book
  • Set a name for example “My books”
    As a result user will have they shiny inline set + source set with proper name and query. If we wont sync the name the user will receive they shiny inline set + source set with proper query but the untitled. And we believe it could leave to some confusion.
    Hopefully after initial launch and processing feedback from community we will find suitable decision of this problem. :pray:

This is how onboarding text looks, somewhat similar info will be presented upon 1st inline set creation as well in What’s new text. Hope it will educate on current behaviour of inline sets. What do you think?

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@ignatovv Thanks for the explanation. Yeah, that makes sense for the use case of creating new sets from inline sets. Maybe having the option to hide the “set name” and only having the “view” name could be a work around. This way we can create our custom views for our inline sets and setting a custom name for that view representing our intention and the Set Name would remain untouched.

2 Likes

@dzlg I agree that hiding the Set name in the Inline Set would be a nice solution so you can provide your own name.

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Ability to hide a Set name already in design and we will develop it if amount of requests on this or similar stuff will be somewhat significant :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
Already love the approach to give more power of naming to the views in inline scenario. You nailed it greatly
Sneak peak:

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That’s great to hear! And I love this sneak peak of yours! it looks so clean and I can’t imagine what the community could do with this custom inline sets :partying_face:

3 Likes

Closing as the core of the issue was identified (not really a bug, just a misunderstanding of the working of inline sets). See feature request for hiding inline set title here: [placeholder]

1 Like