I'm making a small business application and I'm wondering what the best interface would be. The application itself is your run-of-the-mill service ticket tracker. There will be forms for searching tickets (with a grid for results), creating a new ticked & viewing an existing ticket, managing some administrative stuff (users, a few classifiers, etc.), inventory management forms...
So what would be the best interface? Initially I thought about MDI (because that's easy to do in .NET), but then I got my hands on Telerik RAD controls and TDI (Tabbed Document Interface) is now easy to do too (and I'm a fan of TDI since I'm a programmer and most IDEs successfully use that). And while searching for similar questions on SO I found some advice that said that TDI and MDI are both clumsy, and you should do an SDI (a separate taskbar window for each open form).
So... what would be the best here?
I must second Michael Todd's suggestion (and the usual Nielsen/Joel Sposky mantra).
Do user testing
Mock up one and the other. Show to a couple of "representative" target users.
Ask them to workflow through each and describe which feels more natural/intuitive/easy.
Also, this may be a naive advice (I have zero Windows coding experience) but couldn't you code something generic/flexible enough to be able to work in both TDI and non-TDI formats?
(think Firefox "New Tab" vs "New Window" as an obvious example)
I prefer TDI to a cluttered taskbar. Works well for me, but the HCI usability gods may not agree. Browsers and IDEs seem to have converged on TDI too.
Related
I don't understand LiveBinding's purpose. I would like to know which are the cases in which LiveBinding is most valuable. Embarcadero's manual describes it: "LiveBindings is a data-binding feature supported by both the VCL and FireMonkey frameworks in RAD Studio. LiveBindings is an expression-based framework, which means it uses binding expressions to bind objects to other objects or to dataset fields".
Thanks but I still don't know more than before.
I have seen some video in which a guy spends 12 minutes and hundredths of clicks to connect the caption of a TLabel to a TListBox control. When the user clicks an item in ListBox the name of the item is shown in Label. I could have done that with a single line of code (few keystrokes and no mouse clicks).
I am not criticizing LiveBinding. I am saying that I don't understand where it is helpful. I am missing something. Since it is not doing something that cannot be done from code, it means it's doing something that can be done from code, but visually and much much faster. I admit I haven't invested a lot of time in this topic but everywhere I look I see a terribly convoluted way (come on, you really need 5 extra controls to make LiveBinding works?) to do a simple task.
Also, it seems that LiveBinding was mostly designed for DB. All examples will include some kind of DB connectivity. But I am expressly interested only about the cases where I can use LiveBindings and there is no data set/DB involved. I am not using DB that much.
I doubt v. much that anyone would use live bindings if they could use traditional db-aware VCL components. However, that's not an option for non-VCL projects (Android, Apple, etc) and live bindings is the only Emba-supplied option for delivering data to those from TDataSet descendants.
An advantage of live bindings is that in addition to the Android and Apple targets, you can use them in Windows apps, so conceivably you could write the same (FMX-based) application for all three.
Libe-binding can also be used in VCL applications, but tbh, I can't imagine why anyone would use live bindings if they were only targeting a Windows DB application, as they are much slower than the traditional db-aware controls, especially multi-row ones such as grids.
I have not tried myself, but because the implementation of live bindings is interface-based, its potential use extends far beyond DB applications, but you would have to implement the interfaces yourself. It seems to be based around a fairly abstract expression-evaluation engine.
Setting up a l.b. project in the IDE does seem to require quite a bit more clicking around than you'd be used to from a traditional VCL app, but that's mostly because there is an additional step involved where you tell the IDE how to bind the gui objects to the data source(s). However, it is quite straightforward to "wire up" live bindings entirely in code if you want to.
Vaadin and Apache Click seem to be equally good, which one should I choose for developing my web application. Or rather, what are the Pros and Cons of each framework.
I'm a committer of Apache Click but hopefully you will find my opinion objective.
I don't know Vaadin at all, just had a cursory look at their website and examples and mission statement.
Apache Click and Vaadin are meant for different problem spaces. Apache Click is targeted at traditional enterprise web applications while Vaadin targets the Rich Internet Application (RIA) space.
Apache Click is a traditional share nothing, stateless framework. Unlike traditional action based web frameworks Click provides a slightly higher level of abstraction by using Pages and Components. At the of the day Click isn't a revolution. Its just one of many approaches of doing web application development. In my opinion its a very good approach, both from a developer and maintainer point of view. (In enterprise environments the developer and maintainer are often not the same individual, so I differentiate between the two roles).
However developers sometimes have requirements that cannot be satisfied by traditional web applications, which is where RIA comes in. They provide a richer user experience (think desktop) but this does not come for free. RIA comes at a cost in terms of complexity, productivity and time-to-market. It makes sense though, if the requirements are for a richer experience, you need to do more in order to deliver that experience.
My advice here is: think carefully about your requirements. Don't simply assume that RIA is better, there is a price to pay, so make sure you get return for your investment.
Lastly, if your requirement is for RIA, then you should compare Vaadin with Flex. If your requirement is for a more traditional web application then compare Click with Struts, Stripes, Wicket, Tapestry etc.
Kind regards
Bob
I use both ;-)
Click is the best for classic web applications (pure html with no/ small/ handmade javascript).
It is very lightweight (small size and stateless), less verbose (you can do your html in html with velocity/freemarker power ;-).
A real php-killer.
Vaadin is the best for desktop like enterprise applications.
It is statefull, heavyweight, verbose, but amazing.
Grails, Play!, Spring MVC is a real step back after Click/Vaadin.
So my advice: use both!
For most of your pages you will use Click, for complicated tasks - Vaadin.
I've been using Click since 2006. I've built various web applications with it in the last 4 years. All apps (B2B) are still going strong and continue to be maintained/added to now. The best things about Click IMO include:
Very little magic and almost no plumbing. It's all just plain java (and jsp/velocity/freemarker take your pick; or alternatively use all 3 if you so choose; I have for some scenarios because it's so easy to).
It's super fast (It doesn't mean your app won't be slow, it just means Click will never be the reason why your app is slow)
It is so easy to integrate your favourite java lib eg. Ibatis SQLMAP, Spring, displaytag, DWR etc.etc.
You don't need to buy a book to understand/use it (although you may need books for all the other 3rd part libs you plan to use).
Most of my code written 4 years ago still works with the current release. That is just awesome.
Click fits in your head. The whole framework that is. It is so simple you don't have too many questions even as a beginner.
The guys that maintain Click are super responsive and very noob friendly.
It's simplicity helps my apps adapt to new/old tech. i.e I can easily do AJAXy stuff if I want or not.
The form features make handling html forms very easy/fast.
The table features make displaying data super easy/fast
Click's features help me write apps very quickly. Makes the need for scaffolding unnecessary imo.
If you want a light weight, fast, easy to understand framework which helps you build applications as fast as you or your team are personally able to, check out click, it will be worth your while.
Before making your choice you should evaluate all options by taking them out on a test drive.
I'm not familiar with Click, and someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand Click basically a technique to link your server side code to web pages. The UI is page-based and you define the UI with components corresponding to HTML elements. Ajax is not (yet) supported, I gather.
Vaadin operates at a higher level of abstraction. With Vaadin you get to concentrate on your business logic, and build your UI naturally with views, layouts and other components (check out the Sampler). You don't need to care about RPC, page transitions, HTML or templates. Vaadin gives you a fully cross-browser compliant Ajax UI that looks and works great out of the box. It's very easy to get started, and the forum is very active (>700 messages last month compared to 96 on the Click mailing list).
Disclaimer: I'm a member of the Vaadin team and have not used Click.
I would choose, and I already did in a few projects Click (over all other frameworks).
The main selling point for me was that I was able to learn Click and be quite productive in one week-end (Vaadin - but other frameworks too took me much more).
The free and available documentation for Click is much better - you can compare the sites yourself (even if the Vaadin site looks cooler, the Click site is simply more useful - at least it was for me).
The live examples are much better - I always look at them as a snippet repository, and just copy what I need from there (since I'm a lazy programmer :) ) - there's a "Page Java" and "Page HTML" link for every example that shows the source code for every available example.
Regarding the message traffic, I don't think that should be a criteria, since having so good free online docs, and the framework being so much simpler, the users simply don't need to ask that much.
Disclaimer: I'm just a simple user that have used both frameworks.
Is Apache wicket an option as well ?
My experience is with jboss/ejb/jquery, but looking at technologies for starting a new project. I've done a quick bit of research myself abd Vaadin seems to be very well regarded.
Surely Apache Wicket is something you can not ignore if you are comparing UI frameworks. ( I am doing same.) I dropped Vaadin because of poor documentation ( maybe I am not a good Googler.)
Currently comparing Wicket, Click, and ZK.
Click and Wicket are ahead so far for the following reasons:
Generates pure HTML instead of rendering UI using JavaScript which happens in GWT, Vaadin, and ZK. You can use HTML5 features then.
Even with native HTML, server-side binding of UI forms is possible.
You don't need to worry about communication with the server. ZK also does this but with their own language ZUML.
I have found server-side memory footprint higher in ZK in the case of components like the ZK Grid. (Memory footprint for Click is not known to me yet.)
Since asp.net mvc did away with many controls that were in webforms, does this make rapid application development equal with other environments now? For example, if I have an mvc framework in php, j2ee, etc., and I have asp.net mvc, and the coder knows the given platform, isn't the development advantage gone in visual studio?
If I am wrong about controls being missing please let me know, it was my impression they were (and I couldn't use them when I tried it last.)
I ask because where I work some like Microsoft - a lot, some can live with it, but the ones that like it point to Visual Studio for rapid development. I thought much of that was gone with asp.net mvc 1.0.
EDIT: I guess I am thinking that dragging and dropping controls means Rapid Application Development (again, assuming the coder knows what they are doing everywhere else.)
Rapid application development is just a buzzword. It exists if you develop an application rapidly, not due to any particular tool or technology.
ASP.NET MVC is just a different approach. Some people can work faster when they are closer to the HTML. For me, this means I don't have to deal with the (IMHO) touchy databinding model of WebForms. Instead, I pass my Model directly to my View for rendering. That lets me develop rapidly. You can still develop your own UserControls (or download many of the ones that are available through open source projects), but you can't use anything that has events or ViewState intrinsic to it.
EDIT: RAD is also a subjective term. Is it rapid application development if you can churn out the first iteration in two weeks, but have to push the schedule back two months for the second iteration because the code was not maintainable?
If you are talking about the ability to drag controls onto a page, click them, set some properties, and have a code generated for you, and a working application by basically dragging controls and tools around, yes, MVC removes the ability to do RAD.
MVC exists to solve a different problem. It is for people that want separation of concerns to support unit testing and extensibility. Things that were nearly impossible to get with classically developed asp.net applications.
Web forms was an attempt to be more RAD if you will. However, the emergence of things like MVC, and Dynamic Data and things like Linq and Linq2SQL are pretty darn good evidence that Web Forms alone were not the panacea RAD platform.
From a personal standpoint, one may be faster at Web forms just by experience. That doesn't mean the platform or it's competitors are better or worse at RAD.
A lot of people found that Web Forms took so much control away and had such large event models that it ended up being less RAD than hoped.
I'd say that Rapid Development and ASP.NET MVC are not mutually exclusive per se. however since MVC has the intent of segregation of responsibility to (amongst others) allow testability, it might not be the best choice for Rapid Development-
On the otherside are ASP.NET Webforms where you can do ALOT "visually"/using drag-n-drop (i.e. no code), which to some extent does a very good job of for example preventing testability. But developing is a "no-brainer" - meant in the most positive way :)
Well, I've never considered Visual Studio as a RAD platform. Faster than PHP, sure. Comparable to Netbeans/Eclipse. Not even close to a true RAD platform though (oh Delphi, how I miss thee!).
I've been learning ASP.NET MVC for about a month now and I'm certainly sold on its benefits but I realize it is not applicable to all situations.
I've read in several places that ASP.NET MVC is not ideal for data-intensive applications:
Example 1: "Data Driven Application – life would be MUCH easier using WebForms if the application is data heavy"
Example 2: Nick Berardi's book suggests that you side with Web forms if your application is "data-heavy"
Can someone clarify as to why ASP.NET MVC is ill-suited towards data-heavy applications and why Web forms are more appropriate? Also, where does one draw the line between data-heavy applications and other applications? Are we talking quantity of data (millions of records) or are we talking large data models?
I would really like this clarified as well, as I have found the exact opposite to be true, and I think stackoverflow.com is evidence of the suitability of MVC to data-driven apps.
I didn't bother reading much of the second link, but the assertions in the first are not qualified, and many of them seem wrong to me. The stated weaknesses of WebForms, though, would be enough to drive me from using it for a data-intensive app:
UI logic coupled with the code, and thus is hard to separate.
Harder to unit test, so difficult to employ TDD.
Heavy page sizes due to view state management.
The stated weaknesses of MVC are quite flimsy:
Not event driven, so maybe difficult for people who know only Asp.Net Webforms to wrap their minds around it.
Third party control library support is not that strong.
No ViewState(this is also a strength).
The first one can be seen as a plus as much as minus. The second is just wrong as MVC apps can leverage traditional server-side controls if they wish, as well as make use of the rich library of client-side controls and libraries. The third, well I don't think I even need to speak to that one...
You have to be wary when reading articles like this on the internet - they sound authoritative and comprehensive, but where is the meat? Why are the stated weaknesses an issue? It is not enough to just throw opinion out there as fact. They should be backed up with metrics, such as when using platform x over y, developers unfamiliar with either platform were able to complete an application 30% faster, or platform x resulted in 25% fewer lines of code, or fewer levels of indirection, or whatever.
The idea that RAD is a plus is another one that bears careful examination: RAD is fast until you want to do something a particular control was not designed for, and then you hit a brick wall. It is a leaky abstraction and when it fails, you are suddenly confronted with the full complexity of understanding the design framework and code of the given control. This can be quite a setback, and the source code for these controls is not always available.
Doesn't make much sense to me. They might be speculating on the difficulty of creating many models if you have lots of different types of data, or perhaps the relative difficulty of creating web forms in MVC.
However, ORMs (such as L2Sql, EF and Subsonic), model binders, and form generators (I can't find the link right now) pretty much hose those arguments.
Frankly I don't buy it.
I believe that these authors are talking about the ability to drag/drop data controls onto the page such as GridViews, FormViews, and other databound objects.
Say you have a database for your IT department, with a table for computers, a table for printers, one for software, etc. The UI for this is a very simple data management system, essentially a glorified MS Access.
Rather than writing an elegant web app, with beautiful HTML and a class library, you could simply create a quick/dirty WebForms app by dragging your data sources and controls onto the page in Visual Studio.
I am re-writing and/or consolidating a bunch of my "app framework" classes (basic mainform, about box, locking routines & purchase linking, auto-update, datamodule initializer, etc) -- Basically, I have a number of small potential shareware apps that I'm wanting to get out the door, and want to re-use code where I can, as well as build a framework for later apps to save time.
In one app I have auto-updating, I'm using LMD's WebUpdate, and am reasonably happy with it, but given that I'm re-vamping everything, I thought I'd see what the consensus is for "best approach" on this. I don't mind paying for commercial, nor using open source if that's best... just would rather not reinvent the wheel. (I've read: Delphi: How do you auto-update your applications?)
What is the best Auto-update component for Delphi Win 32 apps?
I use TmxWebUpdate. It's free, simple and easy to customize. I also own TMS Component Pack with TWebUpdate, but never really found a good incentive to switch.
I use TWebUpdate from TMS Components and am very happy with it. I haven't used LMD so unfortunately am not able to provide a comparison.
TMS also supply a whole raft of other components so if your re-writes require any else, especially if you want some shiny UI enhancements (TMS have a range of iPhone-style components) then the website is certainly worth a visit.
They seem fairly active in their support forums (although I haven't had need to use them for the WebUpdate component) and they have a fairly regular release cycle.
I have heard good compliment about TWebUpdate from Tmssoftware
also torry has much components for the same job, some are free and others are commericals.
Now what's the best?, it's depend on your needs, you already using one from LMD, which is a good company and I have very good experince with their components, but never used this one.
If you need a specific functionality, or you have some problems with the current one you are using, it's will be better to list them, so you will get a better answers, but it's hard to define the best, because every one has different experience and views.
I use TWebUpdate myself. It works, but the docs are a bit limited and it seems a bit buggy sometimes.
I have looked into LMD's (I have their full component pack), but it seemed to be much more limited than TWebupdate.
I'm also using TWebUpdate, and have to echo stg's comments on quality of support (good), and quality of documentation (spotty -- it's old, and doesn't always reflect their new features immediately).
You'll also find some places that stress the "roll your own" approach.
Remember that part of the auto-update issue is the tools that you will need to create the update "package" at your end. TMS Software makes a tool available for use with TWebUpdate, and it's reasonably well done. In my case, I'm "misusing" the component to deal with multiple files so that I can refresh additional related libraries, text files, etc. The update builder tool isn't really good for that. So there's some manual editing. But the updating part works well.
I'll also add a caution that you need to be careful with updates in Vista (and probably Windows 7). Writing to the protected places in the Program Files hierarchy was problematic for me. You may want to check that out with whatever component you use.
Have you considered Appwave from Embarcadero. It's not free and I don't know the price.