Anton Golovin (anton.golovin@gmail.com) SCJP, SCJD, SCBCD, SCWCD, OCEJWSD, SCEA/OCMJEA [JEE certs from Sun/Oracle]
I'm wondering if it would be ok to post a screenshot of my GUI here and have people critique it? (Andrew, Phil?)
The Sun Certified Java Developer Exam with J2SE 5: paper version from Amazon, PDF from Apress, Online reference: Books 24x7 Personal blog
Regards, Richard
SCJP 1.4, SCJD
Originally posted by Marcus Beale:
Peter,
The GUI does resize well.
I do use invokeLater (you should always use invokeLater since any java application with a GUI has multiple threads that could interact).
I did not provide a means for the user to cancel a long search. I considered this, but decided that it would add too much complexity to the code and wasn't really required. Maybe I should have.
I make extensive use of the Action interface.
Uwe,
Maybe there should have been an advanced search option. I'm not a big fan of that in GUIs, since I usually want to use the advanced search (especially if I was a CSR and used this application constantly).
The boxes touching the frame I think is a pretty arbitrary criteria. I doubt sun would grade us on things like that - how could they make it consistent? ( I do agree with you however.)
The center-aligning of the Details section is a good idea.
Mike,
I was thinking about the naming of that menu also. "Network" isn't a very good name, especially since you can have a local connection. "File" isn't so great either, since I'm not always opening a file. I had one dialog when “connect” was selected from the menu (there was also a disconnect option). There was a checkbox to allow the "local" option on the dialog. Perhaps I should have use two separate dialogs for each connection mode. Maybe File->Open for the local connection and Server->Connect for a remote connection.
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I'm beginning to think I probably lost most of my GUI points from the GUI code. My main Client class was about 800 lines with 7 private classes (mostly action classes) and three anonymous classes. Maybe that was too much code for one class.
[ August 27, 2004: Message edited by: Marcus Beale ]
SCJP 1.4, SCJD
IMHO, I would recommend including the standard menus such as File, Edit... Even if you are not a Microsoft fan, the fact remains that MS is by far the most widely distributed operating system, and the interface associated with a windows application has become the defacto standard.I wasn't planning on having any menus... are you saying that I must have "windows" type menus?
“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.” - Rich Cook
For instance, think about how much it would slow you down if suddenly Ctrl-C no longer mapped to the _C_opy command, but instead to the _C_lose command.
Originally posted by Ed Green:
Hello all,
I'm not trying to start a flame war, but...
If 95% of the users are expecting to see certain common features and interaction models from a user interface, especially, as we are told for this assignment, these will be not-so-techy customer service reps, and eventually users themselves, the ui had _better_ follow the expected behaviour conventions, or it will end up (1) rewritten or (2) thrown out. I'm personally modeling my ui and its behaviour after excel, because i _know_ that (1) it has millions of users who are not complaining loudly enough to stop M$ sales, and (2) there are hundreds of usability experts who get paid lots of money to make sure that (1) stays true for a looooong time.
tnx.
Originally posted by Paul Bourdeaux:
For instance, think about how much it would slow you down if suddenly Ctrl-C no longer mapped to the _C_opy command, but instead to the _C_lose command.
Originally posted by peter wooster:
I'd just switch to my old Unix habits.
The Sun Certified Java Developer Exam with J2SE 5: paper version from Amazon, PDF from Apress, Online reference: Books 24x7 Personal blog
I hadn't thought of that either. Good call.Didn't think of the double click though, good point.
“Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.” - Rich Cook
Originally posted by Jay Simpson:
My thinking was that I would implement the least amount of functionality required, so that there would be less places where my code could be wrong.
Did you see how Paul cut 87% off of his electric heat bill with 82 watts of micro heaters? |