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Dear ProfUIS-Team,



we’re in need of developing some special kind of control and hope that you can give us some advice of how this can be implemented best by using ProfUIS’ facilities.

This control should be very similar to the "Filters" stuff coming with Mozilla’s Thunderbird (from left to right):

1. combobox with selectable key item


2. combobox with selectable operator item


3. runtime conditioned control used for value entry/selection, depending on 1. - i.e. can be combobox (e.g. checked multi-selection), datepicker, textfield ...


4. ’plus’ -button: adds new 1.-5. below


5. ’minus’-button: removes current 1.-5.


6. the user should be able to create an arbitrary number of independent groups each holding items 1.-5. while adding/removing should possible by separate group specific ’plus’/’minus’-buttons (both left or right of each group)


7. the group order represents some kind of priority and should be changeable, e.g. via drag’n drop of a group

First we thought about taking the SimpleGrid sample with 5 columns as a base. But how can we dynamically manage at runtime the control type dynamics for 1.->3.?

Furthermore we’re be faced with the problem of grouping. The ReportGrid appears to have abilities far beyond our requirements - it would rather need some special restrictions besides some sophisticated enhancements:

(a) restrictions

• - only one group


• - column ordering has to be turned off

(b) enhancements

• - a column has to be able to hold different kinds of controls (see 3.)


• - group-specific ’plus’/’minus’-buttons


• - drag’n drop mechanism for groups

The priority would then be represented by the grouped column. It should dynamically become updated with any drag’n drop action that changes the group order.



Last but not least: we’re still using ProfUIS v2.87 ...



Thank you very much in advance for your efforts!



Best regards,

Martin

The design of filter controls in Mozilla Thunderbird contains classic controls like check boxes, but layout of these controls is the same as that of words in a paragraph of text. The same is related to your task. Ideally, this UI should be implemented using a layout engine which can align controls like words one by one. This is definitively HTML and nothing else. Custom groups of UI elements with per-group specific controls and unique UI skin is also a classic HTML task. We support HTML with controls and ribbon backstage view (http://www.prof-uis.com/img/versions/291/backstage-view.png) is fully HTML based, but this is not available in version 2.87. You can try to code what you need using the web browser control.

Because explanations in my first post might have been somehow unclear :

• a group can consist of one to many (grouped) inner items 1.-5.


• a new group (by meanings above) can be added by a separate ’plus’-button attached to the group to which it’s gonna be appended


• a group can be removed by a separate ’minus’-button attached to the group that’s gonna be removed


• the drag’n drop mechanism should apply to groups, not to the inner items 1.-5.