Re[2]: [Vif-devel] suspend participation

[Jacek O. <jac...@po...>]

Dear Benno,

LSB> The calendar widget looks cool and works fine, thanks a lot.
LSB> Storing of the data entered works fine too.

LSB> However, in the code to store the suspend period I saw that
LSB> you iterate through the query result of the groups the user is
LSB> participating, retrieve the entry in tblParticipant and
LSB> eventually store the suspend period. This needs two calls to the
LSB> database for every group the user is participating.
LSB> That should be reduced to one single but clever update
LSB> command. Unfortunately, the framework doesn't offer this feature
LSB> yet :-( This is a serious shortage of the framework and I'll fix
LSB> that immediately.

Yes I've noticed that too and I don't like the solution I
implemented either  :)) I even thought about improving the framework
on my own but in the end I thouht that maybe you had your own reasons
creating the framework this way.
Anyway I agree with your suggestions.


LSB> Some more suggestions:
LSB> - Information displayed in the list of discussion groups
LSB> the participant is registered: At this point, only the group's
LSB> title and description are relevant. Group size and state can be
LSB> eliminated, thus giving the description column more space (in
LSB> case of longer descriptions).
LSB> - Place of button "Suspend" should be above the list
LSB> (beyond the form) for that users don't have to scroll in case of
LSB> long lists.
LSB> - If a user successfully saves his input, the input fields
LSB> should be filled when the form is redisplayed. 
LSB> - If a user clicks the "Suspend" button without entering
LSB> (valid) data in both fields, a warning should be displayed
LSB> (instead of the error message "An error occurred in the
LSB> application. Please contact the administrator.").

OK, this sounds reasonable.

LSB> - I noticed that if I enter a date like 03-20-2006 (instead
LSB> of 20-03-2006), the date is transformed to some date in the next
LSB> year. However, a feedback like "The date you entered is not a
LSB> valid date" is better than silently transforming the input in a
LSB> valid, but not intended date. Is this possible?

Probably yes. :)

LSB> - Language and date format should be passed to the page and calendar widget displayed.

What do you mean by that? Should the date format be based on the
default locale settings or maybe stored somewhere in the application
configuration data? Do you set locale (either to en or de) when user chooses his language version?
I experimented with locale settings and I couldn't manage to
parse date to the timestamp object basing on the locale settings.
Maybe you have some experience with that?

LSB> On thing that troubled me at the beginning was that I had
LSB> to patch the popcalendar.js: In the last line of this file I had
LSB> to write "init();" instead of "window.onload = init;". Can you
LSB> explain that? I use Firefox 1.5.0.1, which browser do you use?

I use Opera 8 and had also patch the calendar for this browser because
it was recognized as IE :) Looks like the widget isn't perfect. :) I
also had some problems with css's because DOM and styles are very poorly
implemented in the widget and it was using styles from the VIF app.

LSB> All in all I'm very pleased with the work you've done so far.

Thanks a lot. :))

-- 
Regards
 Jacek Obarymski