TOPIC: more colour choice for selected items than red/ black

I think a third color in the damage panels would be awesome! I would use this a lot for items that you want the client to monitor, but are not serious defects yet.

Agree with Drew here.

This is what I do as a workound to accomplish a similar result:

I insert standard and/or general comments in some of the Selection panels. I leave the “Selection/Materials Font” color as Black.  Change the “Description Text:” to whatever suits, for example from the default “Materials:” to “Comments”.  In the case of Comments, I  use the “Item Separator:” of “New Line & Bullet”; this makes for a nice look with bullets for each comment.

On Damage Panels: I change the default color of “Normal Damage Font” from black to Blue. This makes anything I insert in the “Black” area of the Damage panel to highlight for the client anything I want him/her to read—like monitor items etc.

I sometimes expand the narrative of a (Red) deficiency and put it in the “Black” area of the Damage panel. This way I don’t overwhelm the client and/or agent with verbose or lengthy Red text deficiencies—makes the summary section less daunting.

I instruct my clients: “Make sure you read all BLUE as well as red text in the report at a minimum!”
So, the report has BLACK, BLUE, and RED text—where the black text is mostly boilerplate, standard comments, instructions, descriptions, materials, etc.

Yeah the multiple color summaries have always seemed liked they'd confuse things as you're jumping around. I'm trying to think of the best way to organize multiple colors within the program. Adding 3 boxes on the right isn't an option due to smaller tablet screen sizes. Allowing multiple colors in the red or black box is an option , but I'm just not sure how this would play out. Trying to implement the KISS method and add more options can be hard at times.

Hi Guys,
I'm assuming that there must be a good, logical, historical programming reason for why the comments sections don't have  a similar simple editing ribbon like the one that you have, for example, in the "Cover Page Footer" entry under "Report Settings".  Seems like something like this would allow for lots more flexibility than is currently available and let those mavericks among us do unlimited technicolor reports if they are so inclined.  (A hyperlink button woluld also be very helpful, but I'll be patient).  Dom, we anxiously await the creator's enlightenment.
Thanks,
DrBob

Hyperlinks work if you add the http:// on there right now.

The main reason for not adding a full editor into the comments originally was to keep things simple, easy to use and easy to read. The happier the agents & clients are, the happier you guys are. In the beginning a lot of the inspectors helping to build the program had great ideas over time but when we'd show them to clients and agents they'd think the formatting looked bad or was too confusing. So we kept working on it until everyone loved the look. We'll be adding the ability to have more colors into the program now because enough guys have requested it, but my advice would be to show it around to multiple people (not inspectors) and compare them first. The more colors you add the more complicated the report becomes. As it stands it's very easy to pick out summary from non-summary items.

Once we start adding this feature in then what happens within the black & red areas on the report? Does each color need to be separate or just have multi colored normal & damage panel comments.

It's definitely worth investigating, but the logistics have to be figured out.

Thanks for the input, Dom:
I suppose that creating software is kind of like being pecked to death by a duck--one comment won't kill you, but if enough ducks start pecking, you need to make sure you're out of the way so you don't get killed or eliminate the duck!

Regards,
DrBob

I would love for hyperlinks to automatically turn blue like on a normal web page .

They do not stand out from the other text at present.