Re: [gnome-db]GUADEC decisions

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

On 10 Apr 2001 00:15:58 +0200, David Marín Carreño wrote:
> On 9 Apr 2001, Rodrigo Moya wrote:
> 
> > Hi all!
> > 
> > Well, I'm back from GUADEC, and here are the decisions we've made. It
> > was a pity that only Carlos and I were there from gnome-db.
> > 
> > So, please, comment on it so that you can also participate in the
> > decision, if you want.
> > 
> > * user interface: currently, it is a crap, very confusing, and not very
> > user-friendly. Things to do are to use wizards for configuration stuff,
> > add keybindings, and rework some of the widgets. I would be very
> > grateful to people suggesting UI stuff, even what would be great is to
> > provide me with a .glade file, which is very easy to do. But well, just
> > suggestions would also be welcomed :-)
> 
> Yes. Now, setting up gnome-db is dark. But I would also improve
> gda-providers setup for remote access.
> 

the problem on this is OAF itself, which does not yet allow remote
activation. We could have a workaround, but it seems ugly to me. It
would be better to fix that in OAF.

> What about editable GnomeDB-Combos? I think they would be very useful.
> They would work as a non-editable combos, but you could insert text into
> them, and then generate an event for processing (autoprocessing would not
> be good always)...
> 

yes, good idea. I started some weeks ago adding some new widgets
oriented for data-entry screens (GnomeDbLabel, GnomeDbEntry, etc). I'll
add this request to the list and will have a look at the current
GnomeDbCombo implementation.

> > * report engine: I've been talking with some XML guys (Joaquin, Ismael),
> > and I've finally understood what XSLT is, and I now know it is the way
> > to go. So, the report engine would only generate XSLT, and, as Joaquin
> > suggested, we could have a "converter" to be compatible with
> > gnome-print, so that the XSLT returned by the engine can be easily
> > accessed and used by clients.
> 
> It could be OK if the Gnome-DB report-viewer component can show the
> returned XSLT. This is something that cannot be left to the application
> programmer...
> 

yes, that's the idea. GNOME-DB libraries will provide all needed for
that, so that app programmers just have to use the libgnomedb facilities
for that. Low level access to the returned format, etc will always be
available via libgda

> And I think that Gnome-DB should also provide printing-facilities (helping
> the programmer to pass that XSLT to the gnome-print, for example).
> 

of course, this is a MUST for the report engine. If we can't print, it's
useless :-). Although, low-level (that is, non-UI) printing stuff should
be in libgda, to allow non-GNOME apps to print. Preview/Design stuff
would be in libgnomedb

> > Thus, the clients would be the responsible for generating output in
> > other formats (PDF, PS, etc).
> > 
> > so, how does it sound?
> 
> It sounds well!
> 
great!

cheers

-- 
Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org> <rodrigo ximian com>
http://www.gnome-db.org/