How many Redmond components are there?

[spinnergy]

Can someone point me to a list of the Redmond and Laszlo components that are available?

I think that the Contacts Sample app uses a terrific (albeit slow and buggy - script timeout) datagrid. Is this a reusable component?????? If so, are you aware of the bugs? I need this component today!

Also, a killer app component is an XML/XHTML text editor. Is anything along those lines available??

[antun]

Hey spinnergy

You can find all the Redmond components at:-

WEB-INF\lps\components\redmond

But the source code for them can be a little confusing. As for the datagrid, there isn't a component, because it's very easy to make your own. I'm not sure if it would be very practical to have a component, because you'd need pretty good control over every data grid you'd want to deploy.

You would create a "row" as you'd like it to appear, using views, and of course text fields. Then you'd give that row a datapath, and each of the text fields their own. That "row" would be automatically replicated for each of records.

Have a look at the basics bit of the data tutorial:-

http://www.laszlosystems.com/developers/learn/documentation/tutorials/data.php#datapaths

Take care,

Antun

[antun]

By the way, you said you were getting script-running-slowly errors in the Contacts app? Could you let me know what browser/processor/os/etc. you were using?

Take care,

Antun

[spinnergy]

And I see the source code for the contacts app. It seems relatively simple and straightforward how you created the datagrid using modules such as the menubar, toolbar, tabview, etc. Is there any documentation available on using these objects?

As for the script timeouts, I am on a Windows XP P3 laptop with 256Megs of Ram. I am using Internet Explorer 6 and the latest flash player (6.40).

I first got the error "A script in this movie is causing the player to run slowly, etc" when I clicked on the sort buttons.

It also is somewhat distracting that the cursor is always in the hand state regardless of hot spots. Is this being corrected?

[antun]

Hey spinnergy

Unfortunately there isn't really any good documentation on the Redmond menu components; the docs there are, e.g.

http://www.laszlosystems.com/developers/learn/documentation/lzxref/menu.php#tag

Are missing any discussion, but the attributes are noted.

Looking at the source for the contacts app, and asking questions here are your best bet with regards to using the Redmond components.

Take care,

Antun

[spinnergy]

Do you have any thoughts on the cursor issue? Don't you think that the default state should be consistent with desktop applications? And you should reserve the hand for hotspot interaction?

[antun]

Actually the whole window is clickable (clickable="true") which is why this happens.

It's to do with clicks going through views. A view will only take a click if it's set to be clickable. For this app, we made it so that the entire window is clickable, which means that the hand cursor gets put there by the flash runtime.

You can play with the cursor (see the docs for lzcursor) if you want.

Take care,

Antun

[spinnergy]

Why?

Why make an entire window clickable if only a small percentage of the window clicks actually cause something to happen?

IMHO, this is a mistake. I hope it can be easily avoided when coding an app. I would have expected this to be a showcase app (which it nearly is), but those little things detract from the credibility and make me dig for more answers.

Also, the resize event (on the contacts window) does not trigger an appropriate cursor. Is this possible? I would think yes, since you are changing the cursor whn resizing columns.

[antun]

Hey jds

Actually this is a problem with the Flash player. It's the same if you create a swf in the Flash authoring environment. If something is clickable and is underneath something that isn't, clicks will travel through the unclickable thing.

Making the whole window clickable is a way of avoiding this problem.


Also, the resize event (on the contacts window) does not trigger an appropriate cursor.


Do you not get the <-|-> cursor when you roll over the black areas between the column headings?

-Antun

[spinnergy]

I get the correct cursor when resizing columns. However, the cursor should change to a diagonal resize cursor when grabbing the handle tab in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Instead it stays on the hand cursor.

As to this being a flash bug. Perhaps so, but I can built the same app in flash using the flash IDE and get the correct cursors. I would expect the same in this app, so you must have a workaround.

I can see this being a real annoying problem for most developers - especially those who obsess over the details of their work - as most of us do.

[antun]

Hey spinnergy

I think you might have misunderstood me. The cursor issue and the clickability issue are completely different. You can set cursors for views, as shown in the example below:


<canvas>
<resource name="myCursor" src="diag_cursor.gif" />
<view bgcolor="blue" width="200" height="125">
<resizestate name="resizer" />
<view name="hotspot" bgcolor="red" width="25" height="25"
align="right" valign="bottom"
onmousedown="parent.resizer.apply()"
onmouseup="parent.resizer.remove()"
cursor="myCursor">
</view>
</view>
</canvas>


You'll need the (very rough) cursor I mocked up (attached). See it running here:-

http://www.laszlosystems.com/lps-dr/my-apps/antun/resizing/cursor.lzx

But the clickability has nothing to do with this. Like I said this is a problem with the Flash runtime. I believe the Redmond components may be a little stale (they were written a while back to give users something to get started with). Whilst you should feel free to use them (and of course extend and overwrite them), if you want precise control over every aspect of the behaviour, it's very easy to write you own set of components. See the window tutorial for some more info on this:-

http://www.laszlosystems.com/developers/learn/documentation/tutorials/window.php

Take care,

Antun

[spinnergy]

Thanks for the thorough example Anton! That really cleared this up for me.

Is the "resizestate" object a built in object or one that you had to create?

[antun]

Hey spinnergy

<resizestate> is a component that lives in

...\WEB-INF\lps\components\utils\states\

It is a state (unfortunately they're not my strong point, but here goes...) which is a state that a view is in at a given time. They can be added and removed using API calls.

So you could have a state, that when applied, displays a number of views. In the case of resizestate however, it's attributes that are applied.

You could write your own state, or you could extend resizestate if need be.

Take care,

Antun