[Gnumed-devel] Re: Comments on the 2.5 Design criticisms

[Karsten Hilbert]

> If you sit the two side by side you will note the following. They are         
> IDENTICAL
I understand that.

> excepting for the listbooks control on the side which allows you to 
> change from one descrete section to another.
My criticism with this was that it appears to take up more
screen space than necessary ?

> IE this replaces the seemingly 
> random series of tabs which are on the bottom of the currrent gnumed
They are not any more random than what the user makes them to
be by means of changing the appropriate configuration option.

> In the screen dumps I provided - when you are in the clinical section you do 
> everything there - if you want to move outside of that by clicking on the 
> listbook icons you select another section - say the reference library, your 
> Inboxes etc.
I agree that the way you explain it the grouping seems
consistent. I maintain, however, that such grouping can also be
achieved with what we already have in the notebook. Apart from
that some of the plugins need to be written.

> The problem see is that my original design has effectively been trashed. The 
> major components which make it workable (ie the tabbed control, the scratch 
> pad, the recall/reviews reminder control and all the buttons to allow you to 
> switch between sections have been removed from the design.
No they have not. They have just not been implemented yet. The
reasons being a) too few coders, b) too complex a task to
complete within reasonable amount of time.

> Sorry to disagree but the new design is a huge leap in simplifying 
> functionality. It effectively does away with the need to be constantly 
> swapping the different editing area's to enter data. The whole place we work 
> at from day to day is the current problem data entry - here the SOAP control. 
That the SOAP control looks like it might turn out to be a huge
improvement over having to swap edit areas is undisputed. This
is, however, not related at all to using the notebook design we
have over the 2.5-only listbook design.

> This central panel is the workhorse of this design. It can allow reviews of 
> old problems, creation of new problems, up front summary of what you have 
> done during the consultation.
This is well understood and not any different from a (still
missing) implementation of it in a tabbed notebook framework.

> > I mean, look at the wasted screen real estate
> > in that "HTML navigation link" left-hand panel. If you want
> > a HTML frontend then write one. Come on. This isn't you.
> 
> Please elaborate - I'm unsure what you mean by this - where is the html 
> navigation link?
The left hand panel with the navigation buttons looks a damn
lot like a HTML navigation panel on websites. And it eats up
about that much screen space, too.

> Try and look past the roughness of this
I do. And when I do I fail to see the conceptual improvement
(apart from the improvement being brought about by the SOAP
control instead of edit areas - which is undisputed but
unrelated to either listbook or notebook).

> and identical to all the early gnuMed designs 
> prior to someone removing the critical components.
You don't seem to understand. Nothing at all has been removed
from your design. It has simply not been implemented. A couple
of ideas have been taken from it and implemented such as the
phrase wheel, the edit area, and the lists below the edit area.
Why were those separated out and implemented ? Because if we
want to have strong code implementing your design we first need
to have the individual widgets it is made up of ! Can't build a
house before you got bricks. Now, it is unreasonable for the
construction workers to be rained upon during worktime breaks
instead of allowing them to build a makeshift shelter from the
bricks they already do have to protect them from the cold until
the house is completed. Of course, one might want to go stir
them up from time to time so they don't get too cozy in there
and forget to build the house. Yet it doesn't help to present
new construction plans when waking them up which will require
them to don their tools and get new ones.

Karsten
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