[Kexi-devel] Trying db-aware combo boxes in Kexi

[Jarosław Staniek]

Thomas Zander said the following, On 2006-07-26 14:29:
 > On Wednesday 26 July 2006 11:08, Jarosław Staniek wrote:
 >
 >>Hello, an initial working code for db-aware combo boxes have been
 >>commited for Kexi in 1.6 branch. Since these are now hardcoded (i.e.
 >>there's no designer for the feature yet), you need to have a tables and
 >>columns with a given name.
 >>
 >>http://kexi-project.org/pics/1.1/combobox.png
 >
 >
 > Hi,
 >
 > From the screenshot I gather it does not use a real combobox, as it looks
 > quite different.

Why I _knew_ you'll respond quickly? :D
This cannot be a combo box, because the content is very generic db table view 
(KexiTableView), read below.

 > How well does this combobox listen to theming (different widget themes),
 > accessibility, color settings and RTL languages ?

First, all the Qt is not _native_ library, it just mimicks the native 
behaviour (on systems where native makes sense). Nothing special, so 
KexiTableView/combo box went the same way.

This is a popup behaving exactly in the same way (and implemented similarly) 
to the QComboBox. It is implemented using KexiTableView, so most questions go 
to this class in fact. Most of the bits that _can_ be inherited from QStyle 
are already applied as defaults (colors, fonts, shortcuts).

Since there are style items for "table view"-like widgets that QStyle/KDE 
lacks, I have an extension data type that delivers appearance/behaviour, e.g. 
"highlight row"[bool], "highlight color"[QColor], etc. More to come.

Regarding to RTL, KexiTableView itself is not very well tested in this area. 
We're waiting for someone who can pay us with his time/involvement. The stuff 
is prepared to handle RTL, just by adding special cases. Moreover, 
Qt::AlignLeft means "right" for RTL in Qt4...

 > How many items do you expect that this combobox shows? On average.

Columns? Sometimes it's 5. 2 on average.
Rows? Sometimes dozens, sometimes about 8 (so no scrollbar is presented then)

I'd like to see an some usability analysis for topics like this.

-- 
regards / pozdrawiam,
  Jaroslaw Staniek / OpenOffice Polska

Sponsored by OpenOffice Polska to work on
* Kexi & KOffice: http://www.kexi-project.org | http://koffice.org/kexi
* KDE3 & KDE4 Libraries For Developing MS Windows Applications:
                   http://www.kdelibs.com
See also:
* Kexi For MS Windows: http://kexi.pl/wiki/index.php/Kexi_for_MS_Windows
* Kexi Support:        http://www.kexi-project.org/support.html