We have spent a bit more time on the design of a user interface structure and think this should be the proposal to discuss.
1. We have moved the user interface section to the Locale schema.
that allows a different UI for different locales (think about Arabic, Hebrew, Asian, etc.).
2. The design units are pixel.
The developer of a device description is strongly recommended to follow a standard VGA (640x480).
This should leave enough room for design.
Higher resolution are expected to go with the designed positions.
If a driver knows about the screen resolution and it's lower than VGA, it could downsize by recalculating the values. Therefore it needs to rely on a reference resolution.
3. As you can see in the latest design, there is a Logo attribute to the DeviceConfiguration element of the device configuration schema.
This is supposed to be a file name reference for one picture and would typically be used for a company logo.
When you check the Control element you see that you can use that picture everywhere in the UI, even multiple times.
The only supported picture format would be JPEG.
4. A Configure dialog like any other dialog considered part of Device Properties is not part of a device description. It is a generic dialog created by the driver by reading and interpreting the device's configuration files.
5. Composite features can be handled as any other feature in the UI design.
As we discussed the driver may offer a subdialog to view and/or edit the components of a c.f. as well as to add a new set of components or remove a user defined one.
This functionality is supposed to be supported under Device Properties and cannot be influenced by the UI design.
6. A dialog for managing custom media sizes is as well considered part of Device Properties and not available for UI design.
7. As you can see a PushButton can be specified as a special predefined button (OK, Cancel) or to open a subdialog - again a predefined dialog (About) or any of the UPDF design dialogs (by referencing the dialog ID).
One button can only open one dialog. If you think further about this you see that tabs on tabs are not possible.
9. The order of the dialogs is supposed to be:
system dialogs, generic driver dialogs, UPDF dialogs in the order they are designed.
10. Labels
As you can see the latest design show a Label element under some controls.
That means you are absolutely free in designing the position and size of any feature control (like a combo box) and its label. Regards from Murphy!
Quintessence:
If we'd allow a UI design as part of the UPDF specification, we consciously limit ourselves to a certain set of functionality, as every driver is expected to interpret all tags properly.
However the UserInterface structure will certainly be optional. And a driver is allowed to ignore any designed section while working with its own design.
We do not think of allowing multiple user interfaces per locale, but just one.
While the design screen is supposed to be a graphic desktop of some kind, we think the structure can also be used by a command line type of desktop (which would ignore position attributes, of course).
Norbert Schade
69 Prescott Drive
North Chelmsford, MA 01863
978-251-1017
norbertschade@attbi.com
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