v1.5.0-beta.6 is up

[darrylmorley]

Hi all,

@jimmyorz @aguilaair @cannotcollide @Caruso8677 @Mostxlnt @aldobalducci @themadturk7 @official-Cromatin @dino2895

Beta 6 is on the releases page. Full notes there. This one is nearly all notification behaviour, plus a new look for the port cards.

What to poke at:

• Notifications. Plug and unplug chargers, docks, drives. You should get one banner per event, a disconnect should replace a connect banner you're hovering, clicking a banner should open the popover in the running app (not launch a second copy), and there should be no phantom charger banner when the app starts.
• Port cards. A fresh plug now shows a placeholder with a spinner, then reveals the finished card once, at about six seconds. Tell me if you catch it assembling piecemeal, flashing, or getting stuck on the spinner.
• E-marker wording. If you charge above 60W with a cable the app shows no details for, the card should now explain what the contract proves instead of claiming a 3A cap.

@official-Cromatin this build carries the fixes for everything from your #566 report: #568, #569, #556 at the posting layer, and the #578 wording. Fresh eyes on those would be great.

"Looks fine on my setup" is as useful as a bug. Anything that looks wrong gets its own issue, linked here.

[jimmyorz]

v1.5.0b6

v1.5.0b3

I noticed a small layout change with the USB 2.0 description.

In the current beta, the line:

Only USB 2.0 is active. If you expected high speed, the cable may not support it.

seems to be wrapping within a much narrower width than before. Prior to v1.5.0 beta 3, it either stayed on one line or only wrapped briefly depending on the language and window width. The same behavior appears in other localizations as well.

It looks like the description may now be constrained to roughly the same label width as the title above it, even though there is plenty of unused horizontal space on the card.

I'm not sure whether this was an intentional part of the recent UI changes or a small layout issue, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

[official-Cromatin]

Seems like the weird formatting started with version v1.5.0-beta.5 and the header itself is affected aswell.

Version v1.5.0-beta.3 to v1.5.0-beta.6 when plugged into the wall

v1.5.0-beta.3	v1.5.0-beta.4	v1.5.0-beta.5	v1.5.0-beta.6

Testing with v1.5.0-beta.3 to v1.5.0-beta.6 when plugged into my ThinkPad TB3 dock shows that beginning with v1.5.0-beta.3 the title is already line-wrapped too.

v1.5.0-beta.3	v1.5.0-beta.4	v1.5.0-beta.5	v1.5.0-beta.6

My guess is that this is done for the title and "Diagnostics" button to not get too close together.

[darrylmorley]

Thanks both. I'll get that fixed.

[official-Cromatin]

The comment of @jimmyorz has led me to the discovery of how the ports are sorted and a suggestion on how to improve it.

On Macs with a MagSafe Port, it seems like the order (or weighting) is as follows:

1. MacSafe
2. Port-USB-C@1
3. Port-USB-C@2
4. Port-USB-C@3

Or in general: top to bottom, left to right.

Up to version v1.5.0-beta.4, the ports would be split into two pools: those that are connected to something and those that are not. Each pool would then be sorted individually by order, with the pool of connected devices displayed before the other.
Starting with version v1.5.0-beta.5, the ports are no longer split into pools or sorted; they keep their ordering. If you plug something into Port-USB-C@3, it will show up at the last position with all other ports before it.

Both options are great and boil down to user preference, so maybe give the user the choce in the settings between the following four modes:

Name of mode	Description
Immutable Ordering (as starting with v1.5.0-beta.5)	Ports will be ordered only by their weight; it’s irrelevant if the port is connected to something or not.
Grouped weighted ordering (as it was up to v1.5.0-beta.4)	Ports will be split into two groups, those that are connected and those that are not. The group of connected ports will be placed first and ordered in descending order based on their respective weight. The same logic will apply to the group of disconnected ports, which will be placed last.
Order of first apperance	Ports will be split into two groups: those that are connected and those that are not. The group of connected ports will be placed first and sorted in descending order based on the time of connection. The group of disconnected ports will be sorted by the weight mentioned above.
Order of last apperance	Ports will be split into two groups: those that are connected and those that are not. The group of connected ports will be placed first and sorted in ascending order based on the time of connection. The group of disconnected ports will be sorted by the weight mentioned above.

I admit that my suggestion migth be a bit bloated and overwhelming for the average user, but it would really cover nearly ever scenario.

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On the note of the new design of disconnected ports, upon start of the app they are displayed as in prior versions:

If you connect and disconnect a device, they will get temporarly stuck on this:

The diagnostics button is missing too.

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On a positive note, connect and disconnect notifications now name the used protocol for the connection and charger and connected devices notification no longer supressing the other.

Sadly the title of the notification does not line-wrap and instead is cut off.

Its even worse when you expand the notification

I believe that this is OS related and out of your reach.

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However, I was not able to confirm the fix for #569. The disconnect banner does not replace the held-open connect banner. But the disconnect banner is now saved in the Notification Centre instead of being delayed until the next notification is dispatched, as in prior versions. It might be because I'm on an older macOS version or I misunderstood your message.

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The issue with the phantom charger notification, if the app is launched after the Mac is connected to a charger or powered dock, persists.
Overall I could not make out any changes in behaviour as to what I outlined in the diskussion of the prior release (#566).

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Clicks in general are now routed. As with connect and disconnect notifications that now open the popover.
We will be able to tell for the next release if the issue mentioned in #567 is resolved.

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And lastly, the mentioned issue with my Mac’s e-marker behaviour is resolved, thank you.

[darrylmorley]

@official-Cromatin Thanks for the thorough review.

That's frustrating #566 and #569 are presenting differently on my end. But, I will dig in more.

I'll see what I can do with the notifications. As you say, I also think this is OS related.

Yes, I think a choice of ordering will be good. I also want to enable custom tagging on the ports at some point, I'll look at that once I have the majority of bugs resolved.