2.4. Changing Cards

To change or delete an existing card, the user must first locate the card by name, as with the Find command. Once the card has been located, the Change and Delete commands behave in a similar fashion.

When the user selects Change from the Rolodex menu, the system updates the display area as shown in Figure 14.


Figure 14: Change card dialog.



In response to the change-card dialog, the user enters the name of a card to be changed. As with the Find command, the name must be entered exactly as it appears on an existing card in the rolodex. For example, to change the card with name, "Fisher, Gene", the user types the name as shown in Figure 15.


Figure 15: Change card dialog filled in.



To cancel the Change command entirely, the user presses Cancel in the dialog. When Cancel is pressed, the entire data area is cleared, leaving it empty as in the initial rolodex display shown in Figure 1.

As with Find, there are three possible outcomes when the users presses OK in the change-card dialog: zero, one, or multiple cards found. When the system finds zero cards for the Change command, it displays exactly the same dialog as for Find (Figure 10). When the user presses OK in the no-cards-found dialog, the system restores the display to the change-card dialog that resulted in no cards being found.

When the system finds exactly one card, the display contains the information for that card, as shown in Figure 16.


Figure 16: One card found to change.



At this point, the interface for Change behaves differently than that for Find. Specifically, instead of the message "1 card found of the given name", the message is "Change one or more card values:". To perform the desired changes, the user edits one or more card field values. For example, Figure 17 shows the result of the user having edited the age and address fields of the card found in Figure 16.


Figure 17: Changes made to a card.



Any and all fields of a card may be changed, as long as the normal conditions of the Add command are met. These conditions are covered in Section 2.8 on data entry details.

To confirm the changed card into the rolodex, the user presses the OK button at the bottom of the dialog. When the user presses OK, the change occurs and display does not change. That is, the typed-in information stays in place. Although it is not typically likely, the user may make additional changes to the card and press OK as many additional times as desired. In contrast to the Add command, successive presses of OK in the change dialog do not add successive new cards. Rather, only a single card is successively changed. In effect, the Change command removes an existing card, and replaces it with a newly added card, so the total number of cards in the rolodex is the same before and after a change is executed. Pressing OK without making any changes to card field values has no effect on the rolodex.

To clear all of the typed information, the user presses the Clear button. To cancel the Change command entirely, the user presses Cancel. When Cancel is pressed, the display is restored to the change-card dialog that resulted in the original card being found. For example, if the user presses Cancel in the dialog of Figure 16 the system restores the display to the state shown in Figure 15.

The Change command can be applied to only one card at a time. If the system finds multiple cards for a given name, the user must first select a single card to be changed. For example, Figure 18 shows the user having entered the name "Doe, Jane" in the initial change-card dialog.


Figure 18: Change card dialog filled in with name to be found on three cards.



Assuming there are three rolodex cards with this name, when the users presses OK in the dialog of Figure 18, the display appears as shown in Figure 19.


Figure 19: Multiple cards found to change.



The multi-card dialog for Change is similar to that for Find, as shown in Figure 13. The differences are in the message at the top of the dialog and two buttons labeled "Select" and "Cancel" instead of the single Done button. The Next and Previous buttons work as they do in the multi-card Find dialog. The user presses these buttons to locate a specific card to change. When the card is located, the user presses the Select button to proceed with the change of that card. For example, if the user selects the second "Jane Doe" card of three, the screen appears as shown in Figure 20.


Figure 20: Second of three change cards selected.



At this point, the user proceeds in precisely the same manner as when a single card is found to change.

Prior to the press of Select in the multi-card change list, the card fields are read only. The user must press Select in order to proceed with change editing. Alternatively, the user may press Cancel to cancel the Change command entirely. When Cancel is pressed, the display is restored to the change-card dialog that resulted in the original cards being found. For example, if the user presses Cancel in the dialog of Figure 19 the syetem restores the display to the state shown in Figure 18.




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