Re: For Christmas, I want

Nothing religious here - I just didn't say enough - of course, tables are the right thing to use for tables. They are not the right thing for layout of other things - where, for example, a table column of width 5 pixels is used to create borders. This may have been the only way once upon a time. (I modernized a site that used a table for a graphic element with different colored squares - and all manner of other things like that.)

So I stand by my statement about ancient somewhat modified to apply to things that are not tables.

You make too many assumptions - I will ignore those. I said nothing about what my colleague likes. He tried it out very briefly and found the issue with inappropriate use of tables. He had a couple other comments that might land in the religious realm, so I'll let them go for now.

The combination of CSS with DIVs, etc., is accepted nowadays as more appropriate - and some kind of framework, whether dojo or jquery or extjs - is that the right name for that last one?

I'm glad one can put your own HTML in there.

Another question - how does it do with accessibility? Things like using <em> instead of <b>, so that screen readers can correctly interpret intent that is not purely visual.

I guess I think that the thing should produce, by default, HTML that follows current best practices, and the one about tables for non-table layout makes me suspicious. And that a developer should not have to do that much of sidework to get the newer stuff in there.

Nonetheless, I'll continue to take a look in my spare time.

Vern

On 12/11/2011 1:48 AM, Joe Pluta wrote:

Your GHK seems to have a few misconceptions.

First, tables are hardly "ancient technology". The TABLE, TR and TD
tags are still the best way to show and control a table of data (known
as a Grid or DataGrid in most Rich UI circles) and are used by all of
the major JavaScript frameworks for their grids. Evidently your GHK
doesn't approve of things like the Dojo grid - I'd love to see an
example of how they show a grid of data - particularly one with movable,
sortable columns, which is what comes out of the box with EGL.

But if you're somehow morally opposed to tables (which I find odd -
programming is about business decisions, not religious decisions, but
for the sake of argument let's go with it), then the Grid layout is only
one way of doing things. EGL allows you to use absolutely any HTML you
care to, from SPANs to DIVs to your own custom HTML using an HTML
object. I happen to be working on a complex UI with multiple
collapsible panels with distinct right and left-hand sides. The
left-hand sides are completely free-form, while the right-hand sides all
line up (they keep running totals).

I did it by creating my own widget which has the common right-hand side
components and then a DIV to contain the left-hand side. Since some
these components can be indented, it takes some work to keep the
right-hand side nicely lined up, but I do it using CSS. EGL is very,
very CSS friendly. It's also very friendly to UI developers because
it's quite easy play to create your own widgets. And those custom
widgets can then be used in the WYSIWYG designer. I've never seen that
level of customization before, and that's what EGL was designed for.

So, anyway, yes, you can use things other than tables for those
situations where tables aren't appropriate. At the same time, there are
still lots of places in business application design where tables are
appropriate and EGL supports that as well.

Joe

One thing not to like, according to our GHK who really know HTML and
things related, is that is uses tables for layout - this is ancient
technology now.

Is there a way to change that to use DIVs, etc.?

Vern

On 12/10/2011 5:32 PM, Joe Pluta wrote:

Anybody who doesn't at least TRY this product is really missing out on a
great Christmas present, and a tool that could quite possibly change how
they develop. One language, multiple tiers, open source. What's not to
like?

For example, with EGL it's very easy to have two datasources open - and
thus, you can easily read from DB2/i and write to MSSQL, or vice versa,
with code like this:

get Customer from dsDB2;
add Customer to dsMSSQL;

Me likee. :)

Joe

That's good news on that front, for those who want to use this product,
anyhow!

Later
Vern

On 12/9/2011 5:12 PM, Joe Pluta wrote:

On 12/9/2011 5:05 PM, Joe Pluta wrote:

The free EGL does not have the EGL program call support. You can still
call RPG programs via a stored procedure or write your own Java class
(EGL is phenomenal about that). But have no fear, the RPG program call
is on the priority list for version 0.8.0! :)

Urk... of course I meant RPG program call support. The RPG program call
support is not there yet. But it's being worked on and it looks like
it's going to be a real improvement over what we have, hopefully
completely avoiding the "obscure magic EGL configuration file" approach.

Joe