Inform user about address record creation/update

wbrowa

While refactoring the Address tab on the Partner Edit Screen the challenge is that the button used to display when and by whom a record was changed can't yet be taken over to the new design.

The control used for this in the past was TbtnCreated which is derived from the Button class. The generator does not know this kind of control yet. So the question is if we should expand the generator to include TbtnCreated. It could be done by using 'btn...' entries in the yaml file but adding an additional type attribute to indicate if the button should be of class TbtnCreated instead of the normal Button class.

Generally this information about who created/modified the record is important to have for address related information.

One other idea is to include this information in the tooltip text that is already shown when the user hovers over an address row in the grid. This would be very easy to implement.

Or should we take a completely different approach? Ideas welcome.

christiankatict

Hi Wolfgang,

We have a Tracker Item that asks for an extension of the WinForms Generator so that it would able to generate TbtnCreated (and the related supporting auto-generated source code!):
https://tracker.openpetra.org/view.php?id=1782

I would prefer the use of such buttons over the option of showing ToolTips over Grid rows because 1) The visual presence of the button signalises that this information is available, while nothing would indicate that with ToolTips unless the user tries to see if that information is available by hovering the mouse cursor over a Grid row; 2) Keyboard users would not have a chance to get to the information if there is no button (without grabbing the mouse and hovering the mouse cursor over a Grid row - conversely, at the moment those buttons can get focussed and the MessageBox can be brought up with either the Space Bar/Enter key); 3) Esp. for the Addresses Tab: Underlying that Tab there are two distinct records that each have created and modified dates/users (p_location and p_partner_location). Displaying those four bits of information in a ToolTip could get messy.

Generally speaking, the information about who created/modified the record is (in my opinion) important to have on many screens, we just haven't got round to implementing that in OpenPetra at all yet. However, in Petra 2.x there are many screens that show that information (including several Tabs on the Partner Edit screen [Addresses, Partner Details, Subscriptions, Notes, Local Partner Data]), and it is indeed useful to have that information readily available. I also remember that we added that information over the years to a few Petra 2.x screens, and I suppose we did that on user request.
Driven by that thinking, in the Bug I linked above I even suggested that the WinForms Generator 'should add such buttons BY DEFAULT to all GroupBoxes and Panels on which at least one databound Control is placed.' That 'enforcement' might be too strict as it might add such Buttons in (many) places where we don't want to show them - but we could well try that and have the WinForms Generator run once with that setting and do a diff on all YAML files and see what effect it has; if the outcome is satisfactory then we could leave that enforcement on (and we would potentially need to fix the layout of many of the affected Forms/UserControls once as the added Buttons might well alter their layouts in a way that would mean we would need to fix the layout); if the outcome is that this would add such buttons to far too many Forms/UserControls where we don't want them then I would not put that 'enforcement' into the Generator, but perhaps have the Generator generate a Warning that such a Button Control should not be forgotten about, and add a new YAML File Element that would switch that Warning off for GroupBoxes/Panels where the adding of such buttons is not wanted. That way the developers cannot forget about adding such Buttons where they really should be.

I remember that we had quite some discussion about how the showing of the created/modified dates/users should get implemented when we moved 4GL Forms from Petra 2.1 to .NET in Petra 2.2. The solution with TbtnCreated was found to be the best by us developers and the users back then. That doesn't preclude that we could not find another option that we could go for now with OpenPetra, of course. However, if we come up with a new suggested approach then it should be run by several users to have them approve it (as the TbtnCreated approach is already approved by them).

Kind regards,

ChristianK