DCM notes for 2025-12-11

[banchan86]

Discussion

• https://github.com/orgs/bonsai-rx/discussions/2482
• Consider allowing editing IncludeWorkflow in new context window  #1972

[banchan86]

Notes from DCM:

We had an extended discussion about potential UI/UX improvements to Bonsai as well as the experience of editing IncludeWorkflows.

• UI/UX
  • Inline preview
    • This proposal Consider adding inline preview for nested nodes #2496 captures our discussion regarding improvements to inspecting nested nodes.
  • Drag-and-drop
    • One issue we touched upon was whether drag-and-drop without any keyboard modifiers should continue to be used for connecting nodes, or if this action can be used instead for reordering nodes.
    • The consensus was that people still heavily rely on this action.
    • We discussed whether it is necessary to constrain the direction of the drag-and-drop (upstream to downstream) or if it is possible/useful to make it bidirectional. For example, to connect CameraCapture to Crop, it is currently only possible to drag CameraCapture to Crop, but a common action that beginners try is to drag Crop to CameraCapture.
    • We decided to keep it as it is to avoid confusion for operators that do accept an input (e.g., FileCapture or Zip) where a node connection can be upstream or downstream, and where the editor would have no way of determining which direction is intended. In any case, this point of confusion is one that beginners quickly resolve.
  • Reordering workflow
    • This proposal Consider revamping drag-and-drop action for reordering workflow #2497 captures our discussion regarding improvements to the reordering workflow experience.
  • Reordering connections
    • The way that reorder connection works is that it finds the common node to which the source and target nodes are connected and reorders the two pairs of connections.
    • We discussed several quirks around reordering connections, which are illustrated in this image, and could perhaps be improved:
    • 
    • Target nodes: To reorder the bottom branch with the top branch, you can only select the bottom MemberSelector and target BufferTrigger, not the top MemberSelector. Needs to be checked if there are constraints on why the 2nd action is disallowed, because technically both MemberSelectors are also connected to CameraCapture, which can be used as a reference. Might be that the expression tree is not solvable, or it is an edge case not considered by the compiler.
    • Branches without nodes: It is not clear how to reorder the middle branch without any nodes, and people often get around it by deleting the branch without the node (disconnecting CameraCapture from Zip). However, it is possible in this case, by using CameraCapture as the source or target node, however, it is unintuitive.
  • We discussed looking at other visual programming languages and adopting some of their solutions, as it is helpful to look at what others are doing or have already solved.
• IncludeWorkflows
  • We discussed implementation details about the proposal to add in-place editing of IncludeWorkflows, including how to handle saving of properties (follow the same rules now for saving workflows) and editing of nested IncludeWorkflows (allow only one editing window to be open).