GUI development

GUI frameworks

The default framework used by OpenPetra.org at the moment is Windows.Forms. This is due to quite a lot of existing code that has already been written for Petra using Winforms.

For a discussion and comparison of several GUI frameworks, see GUI Frameworks Comparison

GUI internationalisation

see Comparison I18N

Customizing OpenPetra

see Customizing OpenPetra

Code Generation

• Code Generation for GUI vs WYSIWYG design of GUI
• Documentation GUI generation with YAML

GUI Style guide

• see eg. http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/ GNOME Human Interface Guidelines 2.2

General screen types and layouts

• Special screens (unique): Login screen, Intranet Export, etc
• main screens: provide the menus that the user needs to get to all the appropriate screens
• CRUD operations for single table (Create, Read, Update, Delete: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete)
• Find screens
• Export screens
• Complex Edit screens, with many tabs etc
• Assistants: guide the user through complex operations
• report parameter screens: the user selects the options for a report to run

• Architecture Edit screens

• Navigation and Dashboard

Controls / Widgets

These controls have been quite useful or will become more important:

• Grid
  • icons, checkboxes in columns
  • load from datatable
  • refresh data
  • select row or column
  • delayed data loading
  • at the moment only used readonly
  • sort by column
  • tooltips for row
  • for Windows.forms, we are using DevAge SourceGrid (MIT license, compatible to GPL)

• Edit Field for Partner Key with Search button

• Toolbar
  • show tooltips for the toolbar buttons

• Balloon special non modal message boxes http://www.codeproject.com/KB/miscctrl/balloonnet.aspx (CPOL license, problem with GPL)

• Statusbar/Tooltips
  • TODO explanation is taken from the Shared Datastore, the help text from petra.xml
  • Edit fields: if you tab into a field, or click with the mouse into it, the explanation should be displayed in the statusbar
  • Edit fields: if you hover with the mouse over an edit field, the tooltip should display the explanation
  • buttons work the same as the edit fields
  • menu items: no tooltip, no statusbar info
  • toolbar buttons: show tooltips
  • using 3rd party control: EWSoftware.StatusBarText@CodeProject (Problem: CodeProject license not compatible to GPL? Wikipedia CPOL)

• Groupbox that can be collapsed
  • save space
  • tooltip on the +/-
  • shortcut key to collapse/open
  • yellow background for part of the groupbox text when it is collapsed (subcaption, partner class)

• Restore the window state and position

• XP Style Task Panel

Overview Comboboxes

TCmbAutoPopulated:

• defined in Ict.Petra.Client.CommonControls
• derived from System.Windows.Forms.UserControl
• contains a TCmbLabelled control
• can load data from the server or cache, using TListTableEnum values;
  • also works with TListTableEnum.UserDefinedList, then you have to set the property Table before you call TCmbAutoPopulated::InitialiseUserControl()

TCmbLabelled:

• defined in Ict.Common.Controls
• derived from System.Windows.Forms.UserControl
• contains a TCmbVersatile and Label control

TCmbVersatile:

• defined in Ict.Common.Controls
• derived from TCmbAutoComplete
• allows to display several columns in the dropdown list

TCmbAutoComplete:

• defined in Ict.Common.Controls
• derived from System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox