Re: MSVC++ app type choice, form design questions

On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 18:44:45 -0600, Jerry Coffin <jcoffin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In article <pwH5e.2752$go4.468@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> frnak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
>
> [ ... ]
>
>> At startup the end user sees a summary of the database contents.
>> Editing (that 10% of the code that will take 90% of the work) is
>> reached through buttons that change the face of the app's main
>> screen. Click [Here] and you can browse through the X records (and
>> optionally edit them), clock [There] and you do the same thing with
>> the Y records.
>
> Do you want to support X records and Y records being open at the same
> time? If so, MDI might be a reasonable choice. If you're only going
> to allow one to be open at a time, I'd probably think about using a
> static splitter with the summary in the left pane (or perhaps upper
> pane) and in the other pane dynamically opening the records selected
> in the summary pane.

In this case the summary doesn't relate well to the Xes or the Ys,
so I'm planning on a set of identically-sized forms that appear or
disappear as required.

--sniiip--
>> Okay. I know I'll have to lay out the screens on paper (and in a
>> lot more detail than the "mockups" I've shown the customer) before
>> really beginning the application itself.
>
> I'm not sure that's a particularly good idea. I haven't laid out a
> form on paper in _years_ (though I'll admit I don't spend most of my
> time doing database stuff). The problem is that paper is basically a
> static medium, and doing the design on paper often seems (at least to
> me) to produce a fairly static design -- the individual forms are
> often nice to look at, but the design as a whole ends up somewhat
> clumsy.

At the risk of showing some grey in my whiskers <grin> I'll say that
I do recall trying to get reports squished into a constant-width
132-character format, but I'm not that ambitious (or masochistic!).
The pencil-and-paper stuff is so I have something to work with as I
lay the screens out -- makes it harder to forget things.

> ... In particular, paper makes it relatively difficult to include
> things like when particular buttons should be disabled, or when a
> button's label should be changed.

True enough. Are you aware of any format that conveys that kind of
"conditional" information? For my needs it wouldn't have to be a
specific piece of software, could just be some kind of notation.

> Given the ease with which forms can be rearranged, I'd tend more
> toward the XP style of development

Can't. _I'm_ developing on MSWin2K. ("Thassa _joke_, suhn!")

> ... -- start with a minimal
> implementation of a minimal spec, and then embellish from there based
> on feedback from the users. If you do a detailed layout on your own,
> it's probably going to be wrong anyway -- and I do NOT mean that as
> an insult; nobody else could get it right either...

As you say, it's not worth spending days on, but a quick sketch is
often handy to refresh one's memory. I use a medium that is highly
customizable, provides a handy annotation feature, and I don't need
to worry about it not displaying correctly when viewd using Acrobat
8.9. This "paper" stuff is amazing! <grin>

As for the recordkeeping, I think I'm going to start with something
pure ASCII (e.g. CSV) and see what performance looks like. As long
as I keep the interface to the data access reasonably well
walled-off from rest of the app I should be able to change it later.

--snip--
> Of course, I'm talking about doing the job in MFC -- every time I try
> to use the .NET stuff, I end up getting frustrated, though I seem to
> recall having heard of a free component from MS to make data access
> easy under .NET, but I'm afraid I don't remember any details beyond
> that (and knowing how things go, that description might easily apply
> to a half dozen different things if you look...)

The first couple of times through VC++.NET I created VS Projects
based on MFC. Then I discovered that much further down below the
"MFC" project (scroll, scroll, ...) was a Windows Forms project
type, and basing my projects on _that_ has made a _big_ difference.
(My Controls Toolbox even has color!).

So far the most painful limitation in VStudio I've hit is the
difficulty in renaming things. I laid out a moderately complex form
but accidentally drew it for the wrong class; what the heck, I'll
just rename everything, right? Wrong -- you have to do a full
search-and-replace across all the project files (&deity help you if
there's any name overlap), and _then_ close down VS.NET, manually
rename the files, and restart VS.NET.

Maybe it's just me, but I often find a need to rename things to gain
a consistency whose need wasn't initially obvious. Since VS.NET
doesn't _really_ support this, the workaround adds a new potential
source of errors... and I have enough problems of my _own_ making
not to want to offer Murphy any unnecessary assistance. <grin?>

Oh, well. There was ".NET" and now ".NET 2003", with ".NET 2005" on
the way. The upgrade should hit the store shelves about two months
after this project finishes. <grin>

At any rate, thanks again for the help. I'm off to install a CD-RW
drive on the MSWin2K machine so I can try scripting the "burn"
process.


Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut minds pring dawt cahm (y'all)
--
"Provide me with ships or proper sails for the celestial atmosphere
and there will be men there, too, who do not fear the appalling
distance" -- Johannes Kepler
--
.

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