[Developers] write grammar questions: question 1 -- user-defined types

[David Flanagan]

Alec Flett wrote:
> On Jun 3, 2008, at 12:47 PM, David Flanagan wrote:
> 
>> As a MQL programmer I find it disorienting to use the freebase.com
>> client.  I've gotten used to using ids everywhere, but the client  
>> wants
>> (and displays) names everywhere.  So I'm not surprised to hear that
>> you'd enter a name that looks like an id!
>>
> 
> Where are some places that it would be useful to see IDs on  
> freebase.com?

Sometimes when I'm composing a MQL query, I need to look up the property 
id of a type.  In the schema view I can see the property name easily, 
but I have to click on the little arrow to expand the details of the 
property to find out what the id of the property is.

I also find using the auto-completion dropdowns for types difficult to 
use.  Once I've learned the ids of the types I want to use, I'd much 
rather type in the id rather than the type name and have to match the 
name to the domain.  And, when I type in a type name, I'd like to see 
the id of the type as well as the name of the domain so I'm confident 
that I'm really getting the right one.

	David

> At the moment pretty much any link allows you to see the ID in the url  
> when you hover the mouse over it, but obviously we can do better than  
> that.
> 
> In the case of types/properties, we're working on a rev of the schema  
> editor and trying to expose IDs where appropriate - sometime just in  
> the form of title= attributes.. but there are a zillion places they  
> could be exposed, and it would be helpful to know some specific places  
> that you miss them.
> 
> Alec
> 
> 
>> 	David Flanagan
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