[OPEN-ILS-DEV] ***SPAM*** Re: Statusbar vs. Alert

[Jason Boyer]

First I'd like to say that I'm really glad someone is working on this. I
really prefer that alerts only pop up when there's a problem, not every time
things work as expected.
I will say though, that almost all of the programs I have handy to check
with use the Left side of their status bar for messages. Firefox and IE show
either Ready, Done, or Error messages in the lower left (I'd suggest keeping
alerts for Errors in addition to status messages) while Office programs show
Ready or (depending on the version) a short message describing the currently
hovered-over menu item. Chrome only pops the message up in the lower left as
opposed to having a status bar across the whole bottom, which is a little
odd, but still along the same lines.

It's possible MS, Apple, or GNOME mention this someplace in a HIG document,
but I've not taken the time to look through any of them.

Thanks

Jason

--
Jason Boyer, IT Specialist
Jackson County Public Library
303 W Second St
Seymour, IN 47274

jasonb at myjclibrary.org
p (812) 522-3412 ext. 227
f (812) 522-5456


On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Bill Ott <bott at grpl.org> wrote:

>
> This was discussed briefly in IRC yesterday.  The concept is, adding a
> status bar to the staff client window to receive messages, instead of alert
> messages that need to have the "OK" responded to.
>
> On the client side, Jason pointed out that a status bar was already added
> in trunk.  In my testing, I've simply added a new panel to that bar for
> messages.  It's not-so-creatively named, statusbarRight.  ...I also added a
> left, but for some reason I've been updating the right.  Not sure if there's
> any logic to one side over the other.
>
>
> This piece of course has to go on each client install:
>
> xul/staff_client/build/chrome/content/main/menu_frame_overlay.xul
>
>     <statusbarpanel id='statusbarRight'/>
>
>
> I'm certainly no XUL wizard, so it took some digging to come up with the
> right way to get a hold of the status bar from child windows.  The following
> is a not so elegant way of doing so in global_util.js.  In particular,
> there's got to be a better way to populate mainWindow without two separate
> calls.
>
> In xul/server/Open-ILS/global_util.js
>
>       function updateStatus(panel,value) {
>
>
> netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege('UniversalXPConnect');
>
>               var mainWindow =
> window.QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIInterfaceRequestor)
>                  .getInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIWebNavigation)
>                  .QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIDocShellTreeItem)
>                  .rootTreeItem
>
>  .QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIInterfaceRequestor)
>                  .getInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIDOMWindow);
>
>         // if it's a dialog, we need to look at the opener
>
>               if (!mainWindow.name.match(/^main/)){
>                       mainWindow =
> window.opener.QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIInterfaceRequestor)
>
> .getInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIWebNavigation)
>
> .QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIDocShellTreeItem)
>                           .rootTreeItem
>
> .QueryInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIInterfaceRequestor)
>
> .getInterface(Components.interfaces.nsIDOMWindow);
>
>                       var sb = mainWindow.document.getElementById(panel);
>                 }else{
>                       var sb = mainWindow.document.getElementById(panel);
>               }
>
>               sb.setAttribute("label",value);
>       }
>
>
>
> Then, instead of the alert, I added a call to the above function from
> copy_to_clipboard, in Open-ILS/global_utils.js
>
>
> Strings.getFormattedString('openils.global_util.clipboard', [text]);
>                       updateStatus('statusbarRight',text + ' : copied to
> clipboard');
>
>
> Or the to replace the "Copies not modified" alert in cat/util.js
>
>           updateStatus('statusbarRight',(typeof
> params.no_copies_modified_msg != 'undefined' ? params.no_copies_modified_msg
> : $("catStrings").getString('staff.cat.util.copy_editor.not_modified')));
>
>
>
> At one point I had a setTimeout clearing the value after a few seconds, but
> it seemed more overhead than it was worth, and having the last status linger
> didn't seem like a problem.
>
>
> --
>
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