[Phpmyadmin-devel] Create table dialog

[Tyron Madlener]

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 11:54 AM, Tyron Madlener <tyronx at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 6:26 PM, Tyron Madlener <tyronx at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 6:06 PM, Marc Delisle <marc at infomarc.info> wrote:
>>> Le 2011-06-25 11:11, Tyron Madlener a écrit :
>>>> On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 4:07 PM, Marc Delisle<marc at infomarc.info>  wrote:
>>>>> Le 2011-06-25 08:56, Tyron Madlener a écrit :
>>>>>> On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 2:29 PM, Marc Delisle<marc at infomarc.info>    wrote:
>>>>>>> Le 2011-06-25 08:07, Tyron Madlener a écrit :
>>>>>>>> I apologize for my directness but the newly implemented 'Create table'
>>>>>>>> Dialog has an awful usability.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tyron,
>>>>>>> thanks for your post. There are two issues here:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1. the AJAX create table dialog
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2. the ENUM/SET editor
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> and they should be discussed separately.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> About 1, I am wondering if AJAXification was an advantage here. See also
>>>>>>> the discussion on 2011-04-08 "Issues with AJAX" on this list. I
>>>>>>> suggested a mechanism to hide most form fields by default.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks, I've read through the conversation. I would agree on hiding
>>>>>> rarely used fields like "Browser transformation,Transformation
>>>>>> options,MIME type" but otherwise such feature in my opinion would only
>>>>>> decrease usability.
>>>>>> Hiding most form fields maybe fixes the problem, but it doesn't fix the cause.
>>>>>
>>>>> One cause is the number of form fields for each column, and the small
>>>>> work area of the dialog increases this space problem.
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't think an ajax dialog for 'create table' is inherently worse.
>>>>>> It could actually be significantly better if for example the dialog
>>>>>> could span over the left frame as well, giving more editing space than
>>>>>> the old style create table page.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not sure that we can span a dialog over the other frame.
>>>
>>> ... but at least the dialog could span the main frame.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yea, such feature will probably only work after framesets have been
>>>> removed, which should be done in the not so far future, I think
>>>
>>> Do you suggest this removal for 3.5? I don't think that this has been
>>> agreed to (at least for 3.5).
>>>
>>
>> Probably not for 3.5. Maybe it could be part of a project for gsoc
>> next year? Part of a code cleanup project, or something.
>>
>
> Seeing more and more places in the code that could use improvement I
> am getting really fond of this idea. I think it would be very much
> worth considering to list a 'code cleanup' project in the gsoc 2012
> project ideas.
>
> Two more refactoring suggestions I have for this:
>
> - For the theming I would build a default style that is always
> included containing all rather style independent configuration. Then
> let themes just overload those settings. That would make it way easier
> to build new themes. And save a lot copying.
>
> - Replace all current 167 icon images with one css sprite file (using
> a generator like this: http://spritegen.website-performance.org/ ),
> and name them for what they symbolize. E.g.: b_key.png instead of
> b_primary.png. This way they can be reused in other places of pma
> without confusing file names).
>
> Using CSS to display icons instead of using <img> also allows better
> theming (and puts style related stuff where it belongs to).

One more idea:

- Clean up pmahomme css code. I bet a good part of the css could be
eliminated with generalization. (e.g. using <div class="smallFont">
instead of <div id="serverPageWithSmallfont">)

>
>>>>
>>>>> Besides,
>>>>> the idea of the navigation frame is to have a reference spot that is
>>>>> always available.
>>>>
>>>> Why would someone need the navigation frame to be visible when a
>>>> dialog is open? If he needs to navigate away, a click on the ESC
>>>> button and he can do so again.
>>>> The gain from having more space would be greater than the
>>>> inconvenience of not seeing the navigation frame, I think.
>>>
>>> Your argument makes sense.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Marc Delisle
>>> http://infomarc.info
>>>
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>>
>