Data import 2.

I have decided to create a separate import for groups and dictionaries, because in some edge cases with a shared import, users would have to deal with 3 separate dialog windows with complicated selections one after the other.

The dictionary import will offer the option to completely replace a dictionary with the imported data (for full dictionary exports or when a free dictionary was converted to the export file format), and another option to expand an existing dictionary with the words in the export file. Making the former case requires no additional work as it is the same as normal dictionary updates. The latter is rather for a community working on a single dictionary, so they can share the few words they changed in the past month or some other short time. It is a more complicated problem but will be very similar to how groups are imported when there are differences in word definitions in the exported file and the current dictionary. Users will be able to select which differing words to import from the export file, adding new entries or changing old ones. This can affect already added words in existing groups. Dictionary expansion can’t deal with the case when words get deleted, so people working on dictionaries will have to do full export/imports from time to time, but it is easier if they don’t have to do it all the time.

Writing the group import is more complicated, because it is usually not the intention of users to change the dictionary, but I still want to allow it. First the same dialog will be shown that is used for expanding the dictionary (only when needed), but in this case I can’t avoid showing a similar dialog again.  Once the dictionary is updated (or kept unchanged – it is important to be able to do this easily as well), a dialog will be shown for words that cannot be imported directly because of some conflict with existing groups or because their definition was not added in the first step. Users will be able to either select a replacement word in problem cases or choose to skip importing that word.

This much complexity can’t be avoided when the data is in such a complex relation. Hopefully in general cases, users won’t see any dialogs. There is no need for them if the dictionaries match and the groups don’t already contain conflicting definitions. Unfortunately, we are always dealing with the same kind of data, so the dialogs must be very similar, even identical at times, which can confuse users. I don’t know how to help with this, but if users complain I will come up with a solution.

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