Workflow Points of Interest

[Treyson]

So while working through a workflow that takes up a bunch of canvas space, I find myself jumping between two points, one at the beginning and one at the end. Every time I need to jump to the other point, I have to zoom out and scroll over and down and then zoom back in. 

What if there was a tool that you could drop on the canvas as a "point of Interest" that if you select it (perhaps) on some other part of the interface, takes you right to that spot in the workflow. I know that currently you can look up tools and it will take you to the location of the tool, but it can be difficult when you are jumping around 4 or 5 different spots to remember which tool number is which.

I would use this all the time!

Just a thought

[andrewdatakim]

There are some hotkeys for jumping from beginning and end of workflows (Shift+Home, Shift+End). The only other thing I found helpful is to put points of interest in containers and move them around. If you are adjusting the tool names you can search for those or you can do the full canvas view Ctrl+Alt+V and hide it in the lower corner. 

I wish they had a hotkey worked like a browser, it went back to the last selected tool, no change adjustment just the canvas view.

[SeanAdams]

Yip - even something simple like creating bookmarks where ctrl-alt-1 takes you to bookmark 1; ctrl-alt-2 takes you to bookmark 2 etc.

[Inactive User]

Bookmark a tool or spot on the canvas that you can click on a link and it will direct you to that location. Similar to a word document bookmark. Would be a nice feature for 500+ tool workflows and you could put the links in a container box at the front of the workflow. I realise there is a find tool function, however, you cannot put wording/justification across that which is what the bookmark would enable.

[Community_Admin]

The status of this idea has been changed to 'Inactive'. This status indicates that:

1. The idea has not had activity in the form of likes or comments in over a year.

2. The idea has not reached ten likes.

3. The idea is still in the 'New Idea' status. 

However, this doesn't mean your idea won't be implemented! The Community can still like and comment on this idea. With enough renewed interest, this idea can be brought back into the 'New Idea' status. 

Thank you for contributing to the Alteryx Community and the Alteryx Product Idea Boards!

[Hollingsworth]

Definitely need better UX functionality like bookmarks and a comprehensive review of shortcuts/hotkeys/etc.

[Joe_Lipski]

@Treyson 

CTRL + 0 to instantly zoom to full extend of workflow and the Right Click and highlight to zoom into area of interest is my trick for this as I'm not a big fan of workflow overview

[Hollingsworth]

I was coming here to submit this idea, but now I'll just chime in with the following:

Apart from a few zooming shortcuts, navigation in the Alteryx Designer is a constant chore of zooming in and out and panning and then zooming in a little more because the anchors aren't big enough to click on, etc. It doesn't have to be this way.

In almost every software IDE worth its salt, there is a bookmarks feature. This allows you to rapidly jump to points in the code. In my favorite text editor, UltraEdit, you can set/delete a bookmark by pressing Ctrl+F2 and then cycle through them by repeatedly pressing the F2 key.

Obviously, the GUI experts at Alteryx will create a design that make the most sense for Alteryx. But to seed their imaginations, I think that there are a few possibilities for this feature
 

1 - Create a new canvas object called a bookmark and would probably live in the Documentation toolkit. When selected, the Properties window for that bookmark tool would appear and allow you to configure that bookmark as well as manage the other bookmarks, including their order. The UI could signify the bookmark with no background and a dashed outline, for example.

2 - If a new object is not wanted, start by giving each Container tool the option of having a bookmark associated with it. But I could also see this being an artificial limitation if a user wanted multiple bookmarks within a single Container.

Regardless of the final implementation, I think this is an idea that would rapidly make navigating a workflow possible with the least friction possible.

Previous work on this idea:

1 - During research for this idea, I found the Bookmark macro (https://www.dropbox.com/s/aqgfxxhwv85ldn6/Bookmark%20Macro.yxmc?dl=0) written by @chris_love. I think this is a step in the right direction, but think there could be more ease of use added to the feature. For example, I'd rather not have to use the Find tool interface at all.

2 - Back in 2015, there was a call for this idea (https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Ideas/Alteryx-Canvas-Bookmark/idi-p/5684) that was subsequently marked as Implemented. A description of the implementation can be found in the Canvas Navigation in Alteryx document (https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works-Blog/Canvas-Navigation-in-Alteryx-10-1/ba-p/9224) where there is a section on how to zoom to containers using the right-click menu. Again, a step in the right direction but a) all containers are included by default and b) still no keyboard shortcut to cycle between them.

[dataMack]

Really like this idea- especially as someone who uses a lot of containers to keep organized it would be awesome to have an outline of bookmarks that I can jump to within the document that is my workflow to quickly move around 

[KylieF]

Hi All!

I'm updating this idea back to the New Idea status as it has reached the required amount of engagement to be no longer considered inactive. This idea will also now enter the process of being brought to the product team's attention.

Thank you all for your feedback!