[Xsltforms-support] [PATCH] Reworked Dialogs to fix show-hidding problems

[Kostis A. <ank...@gm...>]

HI,

OK, i crafted a solution that prevents the
«focus-remaining-in-show-dialog-trigger» problem
from re-opening the same modal-dialog multiple times on [Enter] key
and then not hidding its "surround" modal-panel .

The same solution also solves the (unreported) general problems of
invoking multiple times <xf:show> and <xf:hide> for the same
dialog-ids.


PROBLEM
-------------
The accounting held of opened-dialogs on Dialog.show()/hide() is not correct,
resulting in the "surround"-modal-panel:
a) to not close when all dialogs are hidden, or
b) to close even if more modal-dialogs are left open,
as demonstrated by the test-case xform for multiple modal dialogs:
file 'multipleModalDialogs.xml':
http://pastebin.com/VyTVA3w0

(NOTE that in IE the xf:select controls in the test-xform fail(!) on
initialization,
this must be another problem, since it fails even with the older revision.)


SOLUTION
------------------
This idea is simple,
* On Dialog.show(), depending on the target dialog, we should:
a) ignore it if it is the currently showing top-dialog,
b) or re-order it, if it is a previously opened but overlaped dialog.

* On Dialog.hide() we should just ignore any ids refering to not opened dialogs.


IMPLEMENTATION
-----------------------
>From the solution description it is obvious that
a simple var pointing the currently showing dialog,
updated with the id whenever a new dialog opens,
is not enough,
since when a dialog is closed, we need to know the next top-dialog.

==> Therefore we need to maintain an *ordered* stack-of-opened-dialogs. <==

This stack must be a mathimatical "set", meaning that no dialog should
exist more than once within it,
assuming that a dialog page-element is presented at most once (no cloning).

Also, the z-index would increase on every dialog appearence,
even if the dialog was open before, to cover any overllaping ones.
Eventually, the z-index might increase more times than it decreases.

Therefore, the hide() logic now must now hide the "surround" modal-shade-panel
when the stack is empty,
(instead of when the z-index becomes 0, as was done so far)
and when all dialogs are hidden, it is reset to zero(0).


There was indeed such a dialogs-stack in the code, the Dialog.dialogs[] var,
but it was not maintained correctly, if at all.
In the process, i needed a utility removeArrayItem(array, item) function.


* Patch against rev385, checked mannually against Firefox, Chrom, IE.
http://pastebin.com/HitEG33f

NOTE that i cannot build it,
i have already asked instructions about how to check rewritting-rules
in a previous mail.



I hope this patch gets accepted soon, since it solves a serious
usability BUG on modal-dialogs.


Regards
  Kostis


PS: In my codebase i have also patched the appearence of the modal and
modeless dialogs to use use correct css centering on modern browsers
(not-IE6 that is...).

I'm hoping to wrap it up in a separate patch and submit it in this
mailling list someday.

I believe then it would worth the effort to provide for <xf:message
@level="modeless|ephemeral"> using this reworked Dialog stanza.




On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Kostis Anagnostopoulos
<ank...@gm...> wrote:
> I think i found the problem.
>
> The problem in these 2 browsers stems from the fact that after the
> dialog get shown due to some show-trigger activation,
> that focused-trigger remains its focus.
> So, when pressing [Enter], the show-trigger control gets activated once more,
> and the var Dialog.depth get increased, although the dialog is already visible.
> I remind that the dialog-surround is hidden when the Dialog.depth var
> becomes zero.
> Eventually, there are not enough dialogs to decrease Dialog.depth to
> hide the dialog-surround div.
>
> Now i have to think of a fix...:-)
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 8:31 PM, Kostis Anagnostopoulos
> <ank...@gm...> wrote:
>> Hi again,
>>
>> A show-stfopping bug exists on <xf:dialog> for IE and FF:
>>
>> If after a dialog has been opened,
>> the user presses [Enter],
>> then a <xf:hide>action fails to completely hide the dialog,
>> since the back-shade remains
>>
>> Reported agaisnt FF and IE, rev385.
>> Chrome OK.
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>  Kostis
>>
>> file: simpleDialogCloseProblem.xml
>> -------------------
>> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
>> <?xml-stylesheet href="xsltforms/xsltforms.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>
>> <?xsltforms-options debug="yes" lang="en"?>
>> <html
>>  xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
>>  xmlns:xf="http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms"
>>  xmlns:ev="http://www.w3.org/2001/xml-events"
>>>
>>  <head>
>>  <title>Dialog Closing Problem Instance</title>
>>
>>  <xf:model id="model-main" >
>>  <xf:instance><root/></xf:instance>
>>  </xf:model>
>>
>>  </head>
>>
>>  <body>
>>   <xf:trigger>
>>     <xf:label>Show</xf:label>
>>     <xf:show dialog="dlg1"  ev:event="DOMActivate" />
>>   </xf:trigger>
>>
>>   <xf:dialog id="dlg1" >
>>     <p>In Firefox or IE, press [Enter] before hitting 'OK' and the
>> dialog-shade does not close anymore!</p>
>>     <xf:trigger>
>>       <xf:label>OK</xf:label>
>>       <xf:hide dialog="dlg1" ev:event="DOMActivate" />
>>     </xf:trigger>
>>   </xf:dialog>
>>  </body>
>> </html>
>>
>