Re: [lmi] New Calc Summary

[Evgeniy Tarassov]

Sorry not to reply on time. Yesterday i have commited some
experimental changes to lmi.

On 11/2/06, Boutin, Wendy <address@hidden> wrote:
> Wendy Boutin wrote:
> > Ericksberg, Richard wrote:
> >
> > > 2) Can we lose the gridlines? Or make them softer like in
> > > MS Excel? I find my eyes focusing on them instead of
> > > the numbers.
> >
> > I find the grid lines distracting as well, but I also find
> > some charm in the readability it provides for viewing values
> > horizontally. I just noticed Vadim's response to this, so I'll
> > have a look and provide my feedback.
>
> I like it much better without the grid lines.

I was about to add an extra-feature to the calculation summary html:
do you think that repeating column headers could help improve the
readability of the calculation summary?

The reason to repeat column headers if usually the big number of
columns and the person reading the table have to frequently scroll up
and down to understand what is the column header. Do you think that we
could repeat headers every 10 (or maybe 20) rows in the html table for
calculation summary? Of course the excel tab delimited data should
stay the same. I will commit the change : the table headers will
repeat every 10 rows and an extra headers row will be added at the
table end.

> On a slightly different point, I resized the calculation summary
> dialog (smaller) and noticed a staggered formatting alignment
> with the column values. The staggeredness appears once numbers
> start growing large enough to expand a column. Is that something
> you could fix?

The html code the calculation summary generates is perfectly vadid and
does not contain no extra spaces that could cause such a behaviour. I
guess it is something particular in the wxHtmlWindow implementation.
We will look into it. Thank you for discovering the defect!

> > > Copy / Paste to XLS
>
> I just noticed that I've transposed my wishes for these accelerator
> mappings:
>
> >    Copy spreadsheet data    Ctrl-C
> >    Copy calculation summary Ctrl-Shift-C
>
> It feels much more natural to use 'Ctrl-C' to copy the view I'm
> actually looking at, which is why I'd prefer this mapping instead:
>
>      Copy spreadsheet data    Ctrl-Shift-C
>      Copy calculation summary Ctrl-C

Ok, fixed and will be commited soon.

> That's what I really meant in the first place, but I obviously
> didn't specify it that way. I hope that doesn't cause too much
> inconvenience. And if you don't mind, it's probably best to
> remove the bitmap from the new menu items because they really
> don't fit with those new commands.

I have copy/pasted the same icon for every menu item in that menu so
that i does not left unnoticed. Unfortunatly i don't have skills in
icon creation and usually use pre-made icons. Do you think that a
standard icons (the ones used in File and Edit menus) could be used
here? Or do you prefer not having icons at all? Or do you want to
remove the icon and mark it as 'TODO ??' in the code?

> > Today, when you view the calculation summary and do 'Ctrl-C',
> > then paste the clipboard contents to a spreadsheet, you'll
> > notice a disclaimer that appears in cell $A$3. What's important
> > here is to copy that same text to the clipboard with the new
> > 'Copy calculation summary' function and cause it to be pasted
> > in the spreadsheet. It should not appear in the calculation
> > summary that's viewed on the screen, but it has to be included
> > when pasting that view.
>
> That behaves exactly as I expect and looks beautiful; I especially
> like the pagination you added to the print preview.

Oh, that is a standard feature of wxHtmlWindow.
And the dark side is that i don't think we have a control over how the
table is being break down into parts when it does not fit onto one
pages. Currently a cell content could finish up on different pages it
it contains more than one word. Currently it is not the case, but if
we ever get two or more words in one cell and it if it spawns on
multiple lines, then it could start on one page and finish on another
one, which is probably not what we could want.

> > I understand the data format that gets copied is tab-delimited
> > and the calculation summary displayed on the screen is actually
> > HTML, but is it easy to make the calculation summary printable
> > in addition to copyable? If it is, the disclaimer I mentioned
> > in the preceding paragraph will also need to be printed. And,
> > if the printability can be done, we'll need to add another menu
> > item as well:
> >    Print calculation summary Ctrl-Alt-P
>
> Ah, I think what you've done with this is better than what I
> suggested. I think the preview element is a good final check
> before printing, especially if the calculation summary grows
> wider than one page. I wasn't so sure about it at first, but
> now I really like the extra level of review before printing.

Do you think an extra menu item should be added to the 'Illustration'
menu? Something like:
_Print Calculation Summary Ctrl-Alt-P
Pre_view Calculation Summary Ctrl-Shift-P

Or maybe

_Print Calculation Summary
Pre_view Calculation Summary Ctrl-Alt-P

So that the 'Print' menuitem is still accessible through the keyboard
via Alt-I, -P, but has no extra accelerator so that it does not
pollute the global accelerator table.

---
Evgeniy