All, In the last tip, we have shown that the reset method is cleanly solved in the Wheels algorithms. This tip will introduce a concept of phased validation model in modern GUI tool.
Why phased? The answer is all about user experience on GUI. Someone recently posted 12 configuration steps for an extremely simple validation requirement - setting up a required property. The concern is too much for new users in general. When we consider the configuration effort for a mid-size project with thousands of required fields, it is going to be painful even for experienced developers or administrators. If you work as a designer in Carrier, setting up a required property you only need to click one checkbox in the property descriptor, then you specify where to show error message in the form view model. The following link has three screen shots taken from one of the Carrier demos. It is designed for the IRS Tax Form 1040. http://www.netspread.com/tips.html#required If a user does not fill in any required fields, the second screen shot shows errors. If the user fills in an invalid filing date, the filing date field will have a conversion error nearby as shown in the third screen shot. The required and conversion validations are performed in phase one validations in Carrier. In the following tips, we will introduce the phase two validations and examples that validate social security number, amount of money, telephone number in the Form 1040. Jing creator of Carrier Carrier - The first Internet IDE (not a traditional desktop IDE!) Internet applications should be designed on Internet, assembled on Internet, and used on Internet. Download Carrier. It includes the Struts RC2 libraries now. http://www.netspread.com/downloads/instructions.html
