Re: [lmi] InputSequence questions

[Greg Chicares]

On 2010-04-01 14:09Z, Vaclav Slavik wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-03-25 at 16:25 +0100, Vaclav Slavik wrote:
>> I think I used some app behaving like that in the past, but I can't
>> recall what it was, sorry. I think it will be best if I put something
>> incomplete but usable (say, with keyboard control, but without parsing
>> and saving of the sequences) together quickly so that we have some
>> binaries to play with. 
> 
> Here's a MSW binary with a sequence entry control demo:
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1978132/seq_entry_demo.7z

I suppose that requiring the MinGW threading dll is just an incidental
artifact of the way you built the demo, and that you're not actually
using more than one thread.

> Note that it's just a mockup, it's missing some crucial features such as
> input validation (OK should be disabled unless the sequence is valid)
> and the look isn't polished yet on Windows, either. (In particular,
> wxMSW stock icons are unusable and I was hoping for borderless "-Remove"
> buttons that would get button look when the mouse hovers atop them, but
> wxMSW doesn't want to cooperate... yet.)

I'm not sure we need special buttons that would be unlike anything
else presently in lmi.

> But I think it's good enough to give you an idea about how well the UI
> works. 

I think it's basically right. Probably we need to see a slightly
more polished demo so that we can be sure. But sharing this demo
was absolutely the right first step.

If I pick "for # years" from the combobox, I observe a repaint
issue. The combobox's drop-down arrow is painted into the left
end of the textcontrol to its right, obscuring the number entered
there. It looks like that number has vanished, though it hasn't
really. (I'm testing this on msw-xp2-home, in case that matters.)

If I change the to-maturity default, another row is automatically
added, as intended. But the second row's combobox is about fifty
pixels high. Then, if I cause a third row to be added, the second
row's combobox obscures the combobox that the third row presumably
has.

I think we need to see this with numerous rows and many different
combobox selections in order to judge how well the language reads.
I see "from after 33 years until", for example, which seems rough;
maybe we could find other wording, but that would be much easier
with some more polish in the demo.

I imagine there's a default context for the input sequence, e.g.,
issue age zero and so on. It'd be helpful to have a default other
than zero. That way, we could ascertain whether
  from issue date until [#years] [7]
gets changed to, e.g.,
  from issue date until [  age ] [default issue age + 7]
when we change the combobox selection. The default context--issue
age, retirement age, maturity duration IIRC--doesn't need to be
displayed; it's okay if you just write it in an email.

The popup dialog widens and shrinks when the combobox selection
changes. I think it'd be less surprising if we could use constant
spacing. The grammar for the "from X until" phrase is simple, so
I think we can determine a width that would always suffice. It'd
be helpful to see that in the demo so that we can judge whether
that width appears excessive when the phrase is short (but I
suspect that won't be a problem).