Re: Screenshots for 1.3, page layout

[Chris Travers <..hidden..>]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 10:01 AM, John1 <..hidden..> wrote:


> As yet, I know nothing about how localisation is implemented in Ledgersmb.
> Indeed, I know *nothing* about the structure of the ledgersmb code in
> general, so I apologise in advance that any suggestions I make are from this
> position of ignorance.
>
> If you are concerned that say shortening "Customer number" to "Cust no" is
> going make it confusing for translators then perhaps you could consider
> having a field description for each field.  This could either be a detailed
> description e.g. "Customer number is a unique reference number allocated to
> each customer account", and/or each field could have  longname (Customer
> number) and shortname (Cust no).  Then, the shortname or longname can be
> chosen for each screen independently depending on space available.

First before I begin, I like your general suggestion to line up
fields.  Unfortunately, I also think it will take us some time to get
this exactly implemented.

Localization is handled in LSMB by attaching a language to the user
and then calling gettext through various Perl interfaces.  As yet, we
don't support gettext contexts, so strings are universally substituted
("Customer Number" gets substituted with the same string in another
laguage every place where that is used).

Now, there are other methods to make this work with CSS assuming we
allow per-translation hooks into the CSS.  For example, one could move
both the input and the label over a certain amount of space in one
translation.  Relative CSSP is probably the way to go for this.


>> I guess I am going to propose language-specific CSS filles for now.
>> Handheld support is desirable, but at the moment, Pocket IE is not
>> supported.  Minimo works but I found it to be unstable.  I don't know
>> about mobile opera, and pocket IE can be supported by add-on
>> developers for their add-ons without a lot of work.
>>
> I wouldn't have thought that there would be that much demand for handheld
> support, but certainly worth laying the foundations for handheld support in
> the way that page structure is implemented.

Handhelds with barcode scanners are VERY useful things regarding
shipping/receiving.  There have been folks asking for mobile internet
versions that allow people to fill out time cards from their cell
phones as well.  While I don't think there is likely to be a big
demand for this on the customer/vendor entry screen, one never knows
what one might need to support in advance in business automation
environments, so.....


> I am no expert on page layout and certainly not css, but I suppose if the
> field names are put in one <div> and the input boxes in another <div> then
> css can be used to achieve alignment of the input boxes.  As long the need
> to align input fields is being considered when designing new page structures
> then that's fine.  It's good to know that a lot of thought is being put into
> a clean and flexible page structure.  I appreciate it may take a major
> branch or two to really sort out.

On the address div (although this needs to be refactored), I use
relative CSSP to move the 2nd and 3rd address lines over to line up.
The same thing could be used elsewhere to pad stuff on the left.  One
could even use it to implement rtl-type switching labels and inputs.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers