Re: [Gnumed-devel] Main Toolbar design

[Karsten Hilbert]

>>> 1. If notebook pages other than 'patient' are selected, many patient
>>> related informations keep being displayed (patient photo, allergies, age).
>> Apart from the photo I don't see how this amounts to "much
>> patient related information".
> Agreed, it might not be *much* information, I just wondered why I would
> like to have allergies, photos etc. displayed while for example
> using the python shell
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Well, you won't. Not in normal practice. But certainly this is
one of the notebook pages that wouldn't need the BMI/Prec
calculator. OTOH what would you be using the shell for ?
Most certainly to achieve something regarding the patient. So
it's useful to know which patient that is.

Same when switching back from another desktop or popping up a
GnuMed instance looking for that particular instance where I
selected Mrs. Smith.

> I understand that the toolbar stems from Richards medical records
> application which AFAIK deals only with patient related data (at least I
> didn't see any pages like office, contacts etc.). But yes, 'there is more
> than one way to do it', we should make this configurable.
It is already. Override guibroker['main.toolbar'] whenever you
feel like it. Just be sure to change it back on loosing focus.

>> A patient sits in front of me.
>> Another is off for having an X-Ray taken.
>> A third is still open from having started to fill
>> in that insurance form she's gonna pick up tomorrow.
>> A fourth is being transferred in as an outside call.

>> This is a common scenario for me _today_. I don't want to
>> continually change patients in my GnuMed instance. I want to
>> have several instances running on several virtual desktops. I

> Why not having more than one instance of the 'patient' module running
> inside gnumed ? With many instances of gnumed running you will have to log
> in for every session started and increase resource consumption. Inside
> GnuMed you might have better navigation / control of the instances of
> 'patient' module.
In the list archives you'll find that this has been discussed
before and generally found to be confusing. Usually one
doesn't need more than 4-5 instances per day. Of course it'd
be nice to share as much memory as possible between them but
OTOH I am not expecting a 486 with 4 MB of RAM to run 4
instances of GnuMed. I'd be happy to have it run there at all.


>> need to be able to quickly associate the instance with the
>> selected patient. I also need to be reminded of her allergies
>> right away.
> You would see that anyway, as those information would be displayed as long
> as you are working in the 'patient' notebook page (that is, almost
> always).
Except for that critical moment when I was working in the
contact page (where you don't want the patient to be seen),
then switched to another desktop for handling the incoming
call and then switched back to the contact page. Maybe it's
just my whacky brain but I want to see the patient name/age
right away.

>> And why not grab a handle to guibroker['main.toolbar'] and
>> temporarily replacing that with your own when you feel so inclined ?
> Actually, my point in reviewing various parts of gnumed is rather a better
> understanding of the reasons for the GUI being as it is than having it
> changed to my needs. I would like to write down something like a
Even if you _would_ want to have it changed your way you'd be
welcome to ask why things are the way they are. I am trying to
give answers not telling you "no you can't have you cake".

> Allowing multiple patient modules inside one gnumed session, one might
> want something like "open patient in a new page" in addition to "open
> patient" (as in right-clicking on a link in netscape).
Having Mozilla-like tabbed patient browsing would fry my
brain, at least.

Also, how do you define which patient is "active" at any one
time ? Which of the several open patients are other things going to
refer to ? You'd have to keep track of which patient was
selected last.

Karsten
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