[izpack-devel] Dynamic controls&validation in UserInputPanel

[Dennis Reil]

Hi Vladimir,

Great idea!

regards,
  Dennis



Am Dienstag, den 13.03.2007, 18:16 +0200 schrieb Vladimir Ralev:
> Now that we have conditions and the different fields can be displayed 
> conditionally with some rules assigned to them, I think it will be a 
> good addition to make these a bit more dynamic. In other words - make 
> the UIP GUI to be completely redrawn and revalidated on certain events 
> (like clicking on a checkbox or radio, others are possible too).
> 
> For example let's say you have a Normal/Advanced radio selector in your 
> UIP and you want additional controls to be displayed for advanced users, 
> but not to be shown for users who selected the "Normal" option. Another 
> example is server security (this is what need here at JBoss). The user 
> has to choose:
> 1. Enable local administration only (no authentication)
> 2. Enable remote administration (password authentication)
> 
> When the users clicks on remote admin he gets user/pass input fields, 
> otherwise nothig additional and all this in a single panel without 
> clicking next and going back and forth.
> 
> 
> The implementation:
> ---------------------
> 
> I added an attribute for radio and checkbox fields called "revalidate". 
> If you set revalidave="yes" for a radio of checkbox the whole Panel is 
> being recreated with updated variables.
> 
>    <!-- Standard/Advanced configuration panel -->
>    <panel order="0">
>       <field type="radio" variable="installConfig">
>          <description align="left" txt="Select Standard installation or 
> select Advanced to make changes"
>             id="installConfig.text"/>
>          <spec>
>            <choice txt="Standard" revalidate="yes" 
> id="installConfig.radio.standard" value="standard"  set="true"/>        
>            <choice txt="Advance" revalidate="yes" 
> id="installConfig.radio.advanced" value="advanced" />          
>          </spec>
>       </field>     
>       <field type="divider" align="center"/>
>       <field type="staticText" conditionid="advanced" align="left" 
> id="installConfig.note"
>          txt="This text is only displayed if advanced if checked" />
>    </panel>
> 
> You can see that installConfig.note is rendered only when condition 
> "advanced" is satisfied. Condition advanced is defined like this:
> 
>         <condition type="variable" id="advanced">
>                 <name>installConfig</name>
>                 <value>advanced</value>
>         </condition>
> 
> This condition is checking whether installConfig (the radio) is in 
> advanced mode. Note that installConfig.radio.standard and 
> installConfig.radio.advanced cause revalidation, so the note is updated 
> whenever the user clicks on one of them.
> 
> Performance:
> --------------
> There is no noticeable slowdown for up to about 10 conditionid-enabled 
> controls on my machine. Have in mind that if you radios or checkboxes do 
> not have revalidate="yes" there is no performance loss at all.
> 
> One more hack:
> ----------------
> The UIPs are using a TwoColumnLayout with hardcoded topBuffer=25%. With 
> the dynamic panel updates the height of you panel varies as components 
> are removed or added on the fly, and thus moved up and down with each 
> revalidation. That's why I added an attribute topBuffer to the panel tag 
> in userInputSpec.xml. If you set topBuffer=0% the panel always appears 
> at the topmost available place and stays there no matter the height. If 
> you omit the topBuffer, the default value is 25 as before.
>    <!-- Standard/Advanced configuration panel -->
>    <panel order="0" topBuffer="0">
>       <field type="title" align="right"
>          txt="Standard - Advanced Option" bold="true" size="2"
>          id="installConfigName"
>          icon="/images/search.png"
>          />
>       <field type="radio" variable="installConfig">
>          <description align="left" txt="Select Standard installation or 
> select Advanced to make changes"
>             id="installConfig.text"/>
>          <spec>
>            <choice txt="Standard" revalidate="yes" 
> id="installConfig.radio.standard" value="standard"  set="true"/>        
>            <choice txt="Advance" revalidate="yes" 
> id="installConfig.radio.advanced" value="advanced" />          
>          </spec>
>       </field>     
>       <field type="divider" align="center"/>
>       <field type="staticText" conditionid="standard-advanced" 
> align="left" id="installConfig.note"
>          txt="Note: Selecting Advanced option allows you to chnage 
> various configurations like DataSource, Security, Isolation and Call by 
> Value Semantics etc" />
>    </panel>
> 
> You can use spaces to make some static gap if you want to have similar 
> effects.
> 
> 
> If you approve this feature I will commit it to the trunk or the 3.10.1 
> branch (it's just 20 lines of code)?
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