User Interface design ideas?

[JPFromtally]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

There's a few books by Robin Williams that have helped me a lot:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Non+designers+design&x=0&y=0

Especially, "Web Design Workshop" and "Non-designers Design Book."

Also, go to Download.com and check out their webware section. A lot of the web apps nowadays have great, crisp and neat looks to them that can be easily emulated.

For example, check out:
https://www.trexglobal.com/property-...ftware/welcome

http://www.quasitime.com/screen_planner.jpg

http://www.project2manage.com/tour.php

http://s3.amazonaws.com/geezeo/image...new_design.jpg

The common theme is lots of sans-serif fonts, with clear headings using subtle colors and gradients on top of a white background.

Also, one of the reasons I love Dilbert cartoons is because it shows the constant friction between sales and production.

What if, when designing the I-Phone, Steve Jobs said, "People don't want a pretty interface, they just want it to work well." How many people would have bought the I-Phone? Design and aesthetics are really important for sales! Period.

[DaveM]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

BTW, if your plan is to market this application to other users at some point in time, you need to make that decision up front and design it that way. Trying to retrofit it for commercial distribution is very, very time-consuming.

I really have to agree with this one. I will add that if a company later wishes it used for 2+ locations as a stand alone and still wants combined reporting and input, plan for that too.

I had to add location numbers and every employee is assigned to a location and/or.

Each user has their own place/permissions and a manager can see only where he is supposed to.

This is very hard to do and 10 times as hard after the app is built.

If you are as interested as you seem, you will definitely be able to handle it. You will also get all kinds of help on this forum.

.

[MikeC]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Here's another opinion...

I think John and Bob (and others) are confusing two distinct avenues of development.

If an application is to be a generic one to be sold to unknown users, then I agree that much of what you see is not conducive to doing that (not "pretty enough!). And, in agreement, if this was the majority case for Alpha developers, then Alpha should concentrate a bit more on giving us the ability to do this more easily.

But how many developers here do that? Not many I bet. Most here create Custom Software applications for a specific client. As such, how an application looks is most times left up to the client that is being developed for. I contend that these clients would rather have the developer concentrate on the functionality than aesthetics.

The latter is why I think there are just not that many aesthetically pleasing applications created by Alphanians.

[jjfcpa]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Here's another opinion...

I think John and Bob (and others) are confusing two distinct avenues of development.

If an application is to be a generic one to be sold to unknown users, then I agree that much of what you see is not conducive to doing that (not "pretty enough!). And, in agreement, if this was the majority case for Alpha developers, then Alpha should concentrate a bit more on giving us the ability to do this more easily.

But how many developers here do that? Not many I bet. Most here create Custom Software applications for a specific client. As such, how an application looks is most times left up to the client that is being developed for. I contend that these clients would rather have the developer concentrate on the functionality than aesthetics.

The latter is why I think there are just not that many aesthetically pleasing applications created by Alphanians.

Boy I hope I'm not looking at the wrong development product. I have one client that I develop custom applications for, but the rest of my business is commercial applications for endusers in any number of places.

What attracted to me to Alpha is that it is suitable for both... I hope.

The problem with what I am currently using and relying is that for custom apps, it takes almost as much work as for distributed (commercial) apps. What we've resorted to is developing our custom apps (this client has numerous ones) with the same features as our distributed apps.

I'm really looking for a development platform that will do it all. I'm used to jumping through hoops, just not used to running into dead ends.

[MikeC]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

:) John,

I did not intend to alarm you in any way. Alpha can be used in almost any way you can imagine. I was just trying to point out a possible "why" the user interfaces you see here are not of the polished types that you and Bob seem to want.

just not used to running into dead ends

Generally speaking--everything I have thought of or tried to do in Alpha I have been able to.

I have only found perhaps a couple of seemingly "dead ends" in Alpha---but they may not be with the ingenuity of the people at this messageboard. One is drag and drop functionality---there are ways to emulate it but I do not believe anyone has surmounted this issue yet.

[rmcgaffic]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Frank,

Don't wish Alpha would read that book and take its guidance to
heart?

As you may have learned, its not really hard to build a good looking form just following a couple of basic design guidelines.

You may be interested in a design makeover I posted this evening on the thread "Revisit-Colaspable left Menu-Desktop".

Bob McGaffic
Pittsburgh

[Pureeman]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

My Random thoughts.....
My kids think the I Phone is cool. The functionality of the apps are secondary...unless of course they are cool. In fact Macs are cool. One reason why I purchased Filmmaker pro. I switched to Alpha five because I needed the functionality of a true relational database program and Alpha's underrated data operations. ( I haven't seen a program that matches it yet).

I agree the interface drives the sales. My company switched software because the program really looked good. They could drag and drop all over the place. A slick interface must mean a state of the art application.

People will use a method no matter how bad if they don't know a better alternative exists(or they just don't want to change). Hence, spreadsheet and Ms word created databases.

I miss my Dos applications. Straight forward and fast. I created applications that only needed the function and arrow keys to move through the program.

I have must have owned at least 30 database programs. From Object vision to Clarion. Only some what proficient with three or four of them.

[Davidk]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Maybe it's just semantics, but...

My Random thoughts.....
I agree the interface drives the sales. My company switched software because the program really looked good. They could drag and drop all over the place.

drag and drop is pure functionality. Sure... it's fun, but way, way beyond that it's intuitive and easy and pure function. Maybe "looked good" meant it worked really well, but taken literally it doesn't matter.

Sure it's got to look, but it won't pass if it doesn't work well... so... form and function... but a bit more on function.

[gmeredith17]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Mike,

But how many developers here do that? Not many I bet. Most here create Custom Software applications for a specific client. As such, how an application looks is most times left up to the client that is being developed for. I contend that these clients would rather have the developer concentrate on the functionality than aesthetics.

Maybe there would be more developers producing generic software if certain features were improved. Many of the desktop features have been problematic.

The tree control aesthetics are awfull and is in serious need of an update. The tab control needs a serious makeover and increased functionality. These are not state of the art controls they are the basic stuff which Alpha should really be on top of as well as the ongoing browse issues. I have noticed that there hasn't been a patch for a while now. I suspect they are holding back until V10 is ready and then we will get one patch for V9 and that's your lot if anything doesn't work. That's how it went with V8 anyway.

[rmcgaffic]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Geoff,

Amen! The most critical controls for desktop application development are the tree, tab, browse/grid control, and splitter bar.

Why doesn't Alpha wake up and improve these instead of introducing more supercontrols?

Their tree control is significantly underpowered, the tab control is fine if a 1987 interface will do, their browse isn't half bad, but lacks the hierarchical collapse/expand of their competitors (Brilliant database), and the splitter bar doesn't exist.

So any serious Alpha Developer starts a project with one arm tied behind the other given these limitations.

Bob McGaffic
Pittsburgh

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

...and the splitter bar doesn't exist.

FWIW: Browses have a splitter as does xdialog. Like I said, FWIW.

[rmcgaffic]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Peter,

Yes, you are right: browses allow you to change the width of column displayed using a splitting bar.

But that capability is built into the browse and not available as a separate control.

I've got a little challenge for you.

Did you see Charlie's "Revisit-Colaspable left Menu-Desktop" of a couple day's ago?

I posted a makeover to his menu last night. Can you figure out how to place a a splitter bar on the left edge of either

1. His before Alpha tree written with XDialog
2. My after tree using a third party tree control

I have rezipped his very small file and attached it to my posting. If you read my accompanying thread, you will see why the desktop splitter control is important.

I have attached the before/after screenprints below.

Look carefully at Charlie's, and you'll see a problem: his menu choices are unreadable. There is no way to scroll to the right in the tree control and no way to expand the width of the tree control of display the menu item descriptions fully.

In my makeover, I showed that either widening the tree or changing the font size helped deal with this problem, and I had another ace up my sleeve. I could activate a horizontal scrollbar to the tree if I wanted to. As far as I can see, Alpha's tree has only a vertical scrollbar, not a horizontal one.

But what I really want to do is be able to expand the tree by dragging it. We do this every day with Microsoft Outlook for every version I can remember. You can grab the right size of the task list and widened or shorten it as much as you like. This capability has been available for years in Microsoft Access using FMS.

Here's an animation link you might find interesting in as much there are both horizontal and vertical splitter bars used together:
http://www.fmsinc.com/microsoftacces...bar/index.html

How would you ever do this with Alpha Five without a splitter control? My problem is that the FMS control will not work with Alpha Five (OK, for MS Access only?) but every other single activeX splitter bar control I've found that work with Visual Basic/Visual Studio are dead on arrival when used with Alpha Five.

Bob McGaffic
Pittsburgh

[Davidk]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

FWIW: Browses have a splitter as does xdialog. Like I said, FWIW.

But I find the splitter functionality quite useless from the development point of view - it's only somewhat useful at runtime. You have no control over the splitter for columns at design time. When you split a browse at runtime the split is not saved. You can't really do much with it.

[rmcgaffic]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

David,

It's nice to have a splitter bar in a browse, but that doesn't qualify as providing a splitter bar for developers. A splitter bar is meant to allow the user at run time to widened or shorten areas or columns as needed.

Take a look at Quicken, Quickbooks, SAP, Hyperion, Microsoft Outlook, etc. This commercial software all makes use of a list, task list, menu, etc. at the left side of the screen that can be widened by grabbing the splitting bar and moving it.

This is STANDARD functionality in commercial software. Microsoft Access allows developers to incorporate it in their applications.


Bob McGaffic
Pittsburgh, PA

[Davidk]

Re: User Interface design ideas?

Agreed... I always used the splitter in Access and miss it sorely... along with the ability to control depth of dropdown combo boxes.