Hi David:
First, thanks for asking!
IMO:
The ControlServlet/controller.xml configuration is easy to follow and
works like a charm. Any problems with it arise when the controller.xml
file is split across multiple webapps. (But, that is just my own
personal opinion. If there are any common elements, then they can just
be duplicated in each webapp's controller.xml. Its much harder to
maintain an instance of OFBiz if controller.xml files are spread all
over the place. )
My biggest angst concerning widgets is that configuration files are all
over the place. I understand the concept of re-use across the entire UI,
but at some point, you just have to say enough is enough. The second
issue I have is that building HTML using XML is just counter-intuitive
and requires knowledge of not just HTML/CSS but also OFBiz specific
knowledge of the XML declarations necessary to build the HTML, call the
Entity Engine and/or Services etc. But, I digress.
I wouldn't take away widgets. I'd add a tool that helps build HTML using
widgets. A graphical tool that has drag'n drop with page layouts etc.
would be nice. Once I had that working, I'd apply the "tutorial", drag'n
drop concept to the back-end applications. Trying to configure OFBiz
using the existing forms is really tough. If we had a way to build UI's
that were more user friendly (intuitive) (for example, like using the
shopping cart to place UI components in a cart as the UI builder
positions them on a web page), that would be really neat!
More to come...
Regards,
Ruth
----------------------------------------------------
Find me on the web at http://www.myofbiz.com or Google keyword "myofbiz"
[email protected]
David E Jones wrote:
If you could change anything about the user interface tier in OFBiz (basically
the ControlServlet, the various widgets (Screen, Form, Menu, Tree), the
separate webapps, actions in (or not in) groovy, etc), what would you change?
All comments are welcome. If there is another tool you'd like to see used instead of the Screen Widget (for example), please
describe what you like about it (like "I like to orchestrate my web pages using Java classes" or "I like having
fewer/more/bigger/smaller files" or "I hate having to declare every request and view" or "I wish the screens
used included screens top-down instead of the bottom-up decorator pattern") instead of just mentioning the tool (like
"let's use Struts!").
Why am I asking? This topic comes up every once in a while, and it's true that
many suggestions never get enough support to actually happen (or on further
research it is decided that the idea is not tenable), but brainstorming about
them to get ideas in the open is still a great thing. The history of OFBiz is
full of things like this where users and more casual contributors had ideas and
saw possibilities that others, even more involved contributors, totally missed
or never looked at that way. What I think would be fun, and ultimately useful
too, is to keep this mostly to brainstorming and not do too much comparing of
ideas.
BTW, if you want to brainstorm about another tier (ie the Data or Logic tiers) please use
the other threads on those. If you'd like to discuss things that aren't specific to a
tier look for the "General" thread.
-David
