Forms definition again - high-resolution capability requirements

[Robert Jenkins]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the reply.
It is a lot at one go, but it's absolutely everything I could come up
with for complete 'useability'.



My #1 main problem with the current GNUe 'Standards' is the restriction
on _functional_ screen resolution - you are forcing people to use what
is in effect an emulation of a text-resolution screen on graphics
systems. 

If the forms system was capable of handling up to graphics resolutions,
users could define the resolution they want to use for their system,
whether it is 1280 x 1024 graphics or 80 x 24 text. Note that I'm not
saying graphic-only, just definable resolution.


>From my experience of business & database apps., 80 x 24 text is simply
not enough to be useable for serious applications. It's not whether the
screen is graphical or text, it's about quantity of information
displayed per screen.

(I've just looked at a couple of forms in the Sage Line50 accounts
package - these are diplayed on my PC at a resolution equivalent to
about 240 characters x 60 lines.)

I strongly suggest that you talk to some independent accountants and
business managers, describe the 'Enterprise' project to them & ask what
they think the minimum amount of information per page would be on the
more complex forms. 



In the meantime; pending GNUe reaching a suitably functional level, I've
started writing my own Forms client / designer, as I will lose my
customer if I don't get their new system up and running fairly soon.

It happily takes existing GNUe forms definitions (as I hope to still use
GNUe and get them changed over to 'Enterprise' once it's done), but it
has the screen resolution and security extensions I need.

So far it handles form display, paging, etc., with login at startup
reading user security level from a table on the database. I'm currently
working on the rest of the database integration, then I have to start on
the designer side...




I don't like to keep going on about it, BUT if you insist on restricting
GNUe to 80 x 24 then you are creating a dinosaur. All current serious
applications have high resolution capability.

The current minimum screen resolution requirement for many apps is 800 x
600 - and this applies equally to a lot of the present Linux XWindows
ones, not only MS windows stuff.



What does everyone else think??



Regards,

Robert Jenkins,
JRW Developments.