This may not be a little bit of nothing. It may be something that is just annoying if you have a bit of OCD, but I think I need to know if there is a reason for it.
In RootsMagic 8, in the Places window, there doesn’t seem to be any consistency as to where the place that is being worked on ends up in the list when an action is completed. If you edit a place, once saved, the place edited is moved to the bottom of the window. If you merge places, the place that they have been merged to is moved to the top of the window. I’m sure that some will say “who cares” or that it is trivial, but I felt the need to ask.
Is there a reason? Personally I would prefer the item that is being worked on to stay where it is in the window, until I decide it should move, but I’ve never been a fan of the point of focus being moved without reason. Not that what I prefer really matters, but if there is no solid reason for it, there should be some consistency, so I know where to move my concentration without having to think about it.
My opinion is that RM8 has very inconsistent behavior like this throughout its windows where the window is showing a list and it has to decide the placement of the highlighted item. It moves the list when things shouldn’t move and the initial placement of the highligted list item may not be very convenient for the RM8 user. It’s not just the Place window with this problem. It’s numerous windows throughout RM8 that have this problem. My opinion is also that RM7 had the same problem, but that the problem is worse in RM8 than it was in RM7. And I don’t think it’s a trivial problem. When the screen goes all jumpy around and you have to refocus your eyes and your brain to resume whatever you were doing, the interruption is very disruptive to the thought process.
I suspect that part of the problem may be lack of attention to detail on the part of the developers. But I also supect that a larger part of the problem may be that the tools available to the developers do not give them adequate control over such details. It’s really hard to know for sure without being one of the developers and trying to use the development tools. I do know that I have had frustrations using tools to develop an app where the tools would not let me control such things and it made my app inconvenient for my users.
I asked for opinions and I got yours and very welcome it is.
You have also provided some very good insight into the issue. Having spent a few hours tidying up my places list, it was the focus of my question. I agree totally that the inconsistent behaviour is disruptive. I wasn’t too sure if that was just for me, or an effect on user in general.