Kieran Leigh on 08 Nov 2024 12:00:08
Sometimes, it is helpful to show different formats for a field in different contexts. For example, TRUE/FALSE is not a user-friendly way to present Booleans. In tables, I like to show them as icons - a bullet for true and nothing for false. In slicers, "Yes" or "No" would be the preferred presentation.
The new Model / Visual / Element framework provides a good base for this, but still requires a lot of manual copying and pasting of format strings. My suggestion is to allow the definition of format sets, where the user can define a list of named formats. Each field can then have a style set chosen for it, e.g. alongside "Decimal" , "Whole Number", "Currency" there would be "Format Set" then a secondary control to choose which set to use. The set should have a default style. A set can be defined once, then used on multiple fields without repeated entry or copying.
In the General > Data Format, this would then populate the "Format" option with the formats defined in the set. No need to search around for definitions, the correct format for the context is set in a couple of clicks per field. Of course, other contexts that allow formats to be set such as element level style would also offer the ability to pick from the set.