[This message was posted by Russell Curry of Assimilate Technology, Inc. 
<[email protected]> to the "General Q/A" discussion forum at 
http://fixprotocol.org/discuss/22. You can reply to it on-line at 
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> A link to the proposal can be found at:
> 
> http://www.fixprotocol.org/documents/4977/FIXatdl-1.1.zip
> 
> The public comment period ends on February 16, 2010.

I guess this is just under the wire, but here goes:

As someone who has developed a couple of full-blown WYSIWYG visual designers 
for FIXatdl and other specifications, I think the UI layout model in FIXatdl 
should really be revisited. The problem that I see with it is the same problem 
that you always have when you try to take a lowest common denominator approach 
to a problem - it turns out not to be enough, and then you end up introducing 
little hacks and tweaks which then result in you having your own proprietary UI 
layout which isn't really a good fit for any modern platform.

It might make a lot more sense to just pick one commonly used UI layout model, 
either Java, Windows Forms, or something like Flex, and follow it to the letter 
rather than continuing to evolve a homebrew one. If you consider how nice 
modern UI layout systems work, like Windows Forms, Java, or Flex, and the fact 
that it is extremely easy to convert one of those layouts to the other, it just 
doesn't make sense to be trying to use the scientific method to develop a new 
one.

I think FIXatdl would benefit tremendously from following any layout model 
other than what it uses today. I think if you just picked one type of layout, 
whether Windows Forms (anchor/dock), Java (unh...), or Flex (Box/HBox/VBox), 
people would have a much easier time implementing solutions using it. I know 
nothing about Java layout systems, but am reasonably confident that if FIXatdl 
followed one of them to the letter, including using only their UI controls, I 
could probably translate it to Windows Forms much faster and easier than I 
could implement the native FIXatdl layout.

At any rate, just some thoughts on this, but I really think FIXatdl's current 
layout model isn't as good as it could be. It would make a lot more sense to 
just grab something that is already really well thought out, like the box 
layouts from Adobe Flex, and just bolt that in.




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