Overview

Overview

At a first glance deleting an object is simply the inverse action of creating it. But it’s often a more complex and stressful task than creating a new object.

This guideline will focus on the following situations the end-users can encounter when deleting an object:

The importance of deleting information that is associated with the object and the loss of the work done to elaborate it.
The constraints between the to-be-deleted object and the other objects that already use it and, thus, prevent the object from being deleted.
The possibility to use a tool showing these constraints.
Multi selecting main objects that need to be deleted and all other dependent objects that must be deleted at the same time.

Furthermore, deleting objects can be the elementary task of a greater activity, like:

Cleaning up from tries or an intermediate elaboration.
Refactoring data environment in production.
Migrating on a new set of objects.

These activities are not covered by this guideline. But in these cases, the user may also have to deal with:

The strategy of deletion: deciding to delete all objects altogether or step by step by deleting the dependent objects first until finally deleting the “root” object as initially planned.
The deletion rights and the communication with the owners of the objects if the user cannot delete the object themselves.
Identifying if the “terminal” objects (the dependent objects that don’t have dependent objects themselves) are used by someone or not.
The elaboration of the migration plan to not use the to-be-deleted object anymore and the follow up of this plan.

Usage

Remove or Delete

Removing suppresses the reference to the object. After removing, the object still exists.

Deleting suppresses the object. After deleting, the object does not exist anymore.

From the UI point of view, these two actions have the same result: their representation disappears from the screen. For that reason, the tray icon is common for these two actions.

According to the impact of deletion, different user feedback is provided:

<div> <div>Action</div> <div>Messages</div> <div>Multi-selection</div> </div> <div> <div>Remove</div> <div>None</div> <div>Yes</div> </div> <div> <div>Delete (with possibility of undo)</div> <div>None</div> <div>Yes</div> </div> <div> <div>Delete (without undo)</div> <div> <p>Automatic selection information message (if needed).</p> <p>Deletion error or confirmation message</p> </div> <div>Yes</div> </div> <div> <div>Delete (Dangerous)</div> <div>Dangerous delete confirmation message</div> <div>No</div> </div>

Automatic selection information message

After triggering the delete action, the system may automatically add to the selection some objects that need to be additionally deleted.

This occurs for example when objects are owned by the initially to-be-deleted object and are also visible and, thus, selectable in the list

After an automatic expansion of the selection, the corresponding objects in the list are selected and then the following information message should be displayed with:

{ObjectTypeName} : the name of the type of the to-be-deleted object
{subObjectTypeName} : the name of the type of the objects that are automatically selected
{n} : their number.

with:

{ObjectTypeName} : the name of the type of the to-be-deleted object
{subObjectTypeName} : the name of the type of the objects that are automatically selected
{n} : their number.

Once the user has checked the “Don’t show this again” box, this message will not appear for this combination of sub object type and object type again.

Delete error or confirmation message

A message box to confirm the deletion is compulsory if deleting cannot be undone.

Before displaying this box, the system must check if the selected items can be deleted or not.

The header of the message box is:

An error header when no object can be deleted
A warning message when some objects can be deleted

The body has one or two messages:

A message concerning the object(s) that cannot be deleted (Section A)
A message concerning the object(s) that can be deleted and an invitation to delete it/them. (Section B)

Additional information about the objects that cannot be deleted is accessible by:

A “Show Impacts” button that displays a dialog box with an impact and lineage tool.
A “Show Details” link that expand the box that displays the impacted objects that can or cannot be deleted.

To keep the normal workflow simple and standard, the “Show Impacts” button or the “Show Details” link are not displayed when all selected objects can be deleted.

To resume, we have 5 configurations:

Notation:

In the following description, we have taken this notation:

n: the total number of objects selected
m: the number of selected objects that can be deleted
{objectName}: the name of an object
{GenericOrObjectTypePluralName}: the name of the type of all objects (if they have the same type) or, if the types of objects are different, a generic type name like “files”, “objects”, “data objects”, etc.

Section A

The message informs about the objects that be deleted.

<div> <div>Selected Objects</div> <div>Messsage Section A</div> </div> <div> <div>None cannot be deleted (m==n)</div> <div>No message.</div> </div> <div> <div>One cannot be deleted: (n-m=1)</div> <div>‘{objectName}’ cannot be deleted because other objects depend on it. To delete it, you must also delete all impacted objects.</div> </div> <div> <div>Many cannot be deleted: (n-m > 1)</div> <div>{n-m} of {n} {GenericOrObjectTypePluralName} cannot be deleted because other objects depend on them. To delete them, you must also delete all impacted objects.</div> </div>

Section B

The message informs about the objects that deleted.

<div> <div>Selected objects</div> <div>Message Section B</div> </div> <div> <div>None can be deleted: (m=0)</div> <div>No message</div> </div> <div> <div>One can be deleted: (m=1)</div> <div>Delete ‘{objectName}’?</div> </div> <div> <div>Many can be deleted: (m > 1)</div> <div>{m} of {n} {GenericOrObjectTypePluralName} can be deleted. Do you want to delete them?</div> </div>

List of all dialog boxes

Dangerous deletion confirmation message

Some objects are too important to be deleted with a simple confirmation, and an additional failsafe can prevent a serious error.

For this type of objects, the delete should be available for one unique object only.

In that case, it is recommended to put the delete button in the object page of the object and not in the toolbar of the list of objects where several objects could be selected altogether.

Interaction

<div> <div>With / In</div> <div>User Interaction</div> <div>System response</div> </div> <div> <div>List of objects</div> <div>Select/Deselect objects</div> <div> <ul> <li>Display the objects selected or unselected.</li> <li>Enable or Disable the Delete button if one or more objects are selected or not.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <div> <div>Toolbar</div> <div>Click on Delete</div> <div> <ul> <li>Display the Delete confirmation message</li> </ul> <p>or</p> <ul> <li>Add some necessary objects to the selection and display the automatic expansion information message if the current user has not checked to “Don’t show this again” option previously in the session.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <div> <div>Automatic expansion information message box</div> <div>Click on OK</div> <div> <ul> <li>Hide the message box.</li> <li>Display the Delete confirmation message</li> </ul> </div> </div> <div> <div>Delete confirmation message</div> <div>Click “Close” or “Cancel”</div> <div> <ul> <li>Hide the message box.</li> <li>The selected objects remain selected.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <div> <div></div> <div>Click “Delete”</div> <div> <ul> <li>Hide the message box.</li> <li>The selected objects that can be deleted disappear.</li> <li>The other selected objects remain selected.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <div> <div></div> <div>Click “Show Impacts”</div> <div> <ul> <li>Hide the message box.</li> <li>The selected objects remain selected.</li> <li>Display the “Impacts” dialog box. All selected objects are transmitted to that dialog box.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <div> <div></div> <div>Click “Show Details”</div> <div> <ul> <li>Show the area explicating the objects that cannot be deleted and the ones that can be. This area is only “for information” It is not possible to select or deselect objects in that area.<br>The width and the height of this area depends on how objects are listed (chosen at design time)<br>The message box is automatically resized to display this area.</li> </ul> </div> </div> <div> <div></div> <div>Click “Hide Details”</div> <div> <ul> <li>Hide the area<br>The box recovers its initial size.</li> </ul> </div> </div>

Delete Message box (with details area)

Support

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Overview

Usage

Remove or Delete

Automatic selection information message

Delete error or confirmation message

Notation:

Section A

Section B

List of all dialog boxes

Dangerous deletion confirmation message

Interaction

Delete Message box (with details area)

Related Links

Support