Hello,
we prefer to disable tasks for users rather than hide them completely, so that a user knows that the task is still present, but not applicable to that particular record. However, it is currently difficult to indicate WHY the task is not available. Sometimes this is obvious and can be inferred from the name, but sometimes you would like to offer a user more information.
We would like to be able to provide a tooltip to a disabled task (or detail) either through a context procedure or through translation objects or in some other way, so that we can inform the user why the task or detail is disabled. The context procedure would be best, as the reason why a task/detail is grayed out can be multiple, which are defined in the control procedure. Translation objects would work, but is not preferrable because then we have to describe ALL the reasons in the tooltip, leaving the user to figure out for himself which reason applies to him at that moment.
Hi@BramG ,
We faced the same problem but we've solved it in another way. We keep the tasks enabled and in the logic of the task we check if the preconditions are met for actually executing the task (for which you can also write unit-tests
). If the preconditions are not met, we send a dedicated message to the user why the specified task cannot be executed.
Hopefully this is an approach you can use
Keep in mind that a task can also be disabled for other reasons. For instance, a task can become disabled while editing or when the task is marked to be disabled for empty subjects.
Context logic would indeed be the most logical solution for very specific reasons of disabling a task.
About the way to approach this - having the tooltip be provided by business logic will make a multi-language approach harder. A message ID provided by Context logic or something indicating the specific reason would fit better in my opinion.
Note that limiting this to tasks only may be a bit arbitrary. Reports and detail tabs and tiles can also be disabled, as well as add/update/delete/confirm and even cancel buttons via Layout logic.