Complex form layouts

[mansperger]

I'm completely new to Laszlo and am attempting to see how this product may be used to generate a web GUI for a product that uses complex form layouts for data entry.

Can anyone point me to any actual samples of such a thing?

[antun]

Hi there

Have you checked out the demos yet?

http://www.laszlosystems.com/demos/

One example of a very straightforward form app is the Contacts app:

http://www.laszlosystems.com/lps/sample-apps/contacts/contacts.lzo?lzt=html

This uses the Redmond components set (i.e. the form elements), which has actually been superceded by the new Lz Components. The new components have much more functionality.

What you've got to understand is that the LPS is a platform. What you can do with it as far as UI is concerned is virtually boundless. The components I mentioned are all written in LZX, so in other words you can write any UI you like.

Does that help?

-Antun

[mansperger]

Thanks Antun, I am not really a developer myself, just a simple UI Designer who is looking for ways to help my company enhance their web-based application suite product from a HTML/JSP interface into something more scalable and onto a platform that can handle making a web UI more like a traditional GUI and Laszlo appears to be that solution as I go over the basics.

Is there a chance that somewhere down the line there could be a WYSIWYG tool for Laszlo to aide UI Designers in laying out the basics of the screens for the UI Developers to then take and wire into the backend solutions of the products that they may be working on?

Thank you so much.

[antun]

The WSYWIG issue has come up numerous times. At some point, most likely there will be one, but it's not on the immediate roadmap. There are clever tricks you can do by adding dragstates to items, to allow them to be moved around - in the Laszlo app.

A good workflow for designer->developer is for the designer to use a storyboard approach to convey what they're looking for in the UI.

-Antun

[mansperger]

Very cool, thank you very much for the info Antun, much appreciated.

[mansperger]

Oh! Almost forgot ... if you do start a project for development of a WYSIWYG version that designers can quickly use to mock up UIs I would be very much interested in helping out however possible -- even if just from a usability standpoint.

[whisperstorm]

I've been kicking around the idea of creating a sourceforge or other open source project to create a wysiwyg tool for laszlo development. If I get more time with this I'll post something more here. Lots of folks have kicked around the idea of making a wysiwyg tool in laszlo itself.

[mansperger]

sweet, either works for me to help get base level design work done to use as mock ups and PoC