[Gnumed-devel] GNUmed screen standardization proposal

[Jim Busser]

I recently made a suggestion that was either overlooked, or maybe  
having to be thought about, on standardizing any of the windows that  
GNUmed would open. Plugins already fully utilize whatever space has  
been given to the client (by the user), so I am talking more about  
the various non-plugin windows which would ideally be larger and  
better-positioned.

In the case of confirmatory dialogs, it may be sensible to open at  
the centre of the screen and they only need to be large enough to  
support the string and buttons. But even so, it may be good to avoid  
10 different sizes of dialog boxes and maybe decide on small and  
medium, or small and medium and large. I would prefer some  
consistency of size and appearance, even if some sizes had a bit of  
empty space in the bottoms.

The other kinds of windows that are evoked are data viewing / entry /  
editing widgets. I think these would be really good to present to the  
user in a consistent way. If we take as an example the list of  
encounters (see screenshot "default")

1) It presently opens to a width of only maybe 500 pixels. The top  
partly obscures some of the patient name spelling, age and caveat and  
while these are still readable it is distracting. If it is  
deliberately distracting to make obvious to the user it is modal, the  
screen might better be moved down to cover the plugin tabs to remove  
the temptation to click them.

2) It is too narrow to show enough information to decide which  
encounter to select, at least in some cases.

Now compare screenshot "optimized"...

I would suggest that:

- no confirmatory dialog or data viewing / entry / editing screen by  
default obscure any of what I like to call the "patient banner",  
meaning the "band" that includes the photo and everything to the  
right of it

- confirmatory dialog screens be considered to follow the other  
suggestions above

- data viewing / entry / editing screens (as per screenshot):
- - begin tidily just below the photo
- - use the full width that is being used by the client
- - extend downward, in the case of "modal" screens, to cover the  
plugin tabs, or if non-modal to allow the tabs to remain clickable

It appears to me that the client can "remember", between sessions  
(maybe not in the case of forced quits) the size that it was last  
given by the user. If I zoom it to full screen size, and exit, my  
next launch opens the client to full screen. If I resize the client  
to any other size, then it will open next time at that size, although  
it seems to be set to always open the client centred on the screen. I  
tested this by repositioning a less-than-full screen-size client to  
various edges of the screen before exiting, and each time the client  
re-opens centred.

Is wxWidgets able to know the current display resolution, the current  
client size (it seems it must have some ability at this) and the  
ability to open new windows relative to a window that is already open?

Thus far there are perhaps only a dozen data display / entry /  
viewing screens which I would offer as higher-value to improve. I am  
less pressed to ask retooling of existing confirmatory dialogs but  
maybe any new ones could be deployed under the given suggestions, and  
older ones retooled only if they (or nearby code) was being tweaked  
for other reasons or when someone would down the road do minor little  
cleanups?

The original pngs of the screenshots together were > 200K and  
rejected by the list, accordingly reduced-quality PDFs which I hope  
still make the examples clear:

EncounterListDefault.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

EncounterListOptimized.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document