Re: [Gnumed-devel] demographics editor

[Hilmar Berger]

Karsten,

On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 19:20:25 +0200
Karsten Hilbert <address@hidden> wrote:

> I have tried to make it irrelevant whether there is a real
> patient object active by assigning a Null pattern instance to
> the patient pointer in the nonselected-patient case. However,
> that seems to not work.
This seems to indicate that the error handler is still not good enough. We will 
have to look into this again.
> 
> Technically, the next best solution is to force the user to
> define a plugin that is raised initially and which doesn't
> need an active patient. Thereafter switching to tabs needing a
> patient isn't possible before actually selecting a patient.
> This solution also feels fairly OK in terms of user logic.
> What do you think ?
I'm sorry, but I can't see either elegance or benefit in this approach. If you 
handle the "no-patient" situation correctly, no extra plugin should be needed. 
IMHO every plugin should provide something like an "empty data" mode, in which 
either nothing or an appropriate message is displayed (think of any office 
application with no open document). Then you can start up with every plugin 
raised on top. This needs checks in each and every module - but as I already 
have pointed out, this is something I feel  a properly coded program should do 
anyways.

Hilmar