On 12/12/05, Paul Cantrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > And wizards are helpful when you are not familiar with the > > application of > > the tool, they are a friendly introduction to doing something. > > Agreed, but ideally, the tool should be so elegant and self- > explanatory that its natural interface is itself a friendly > introduction. Obviously that's idealistic, but as ideals go, I think > it's a good one. > > My point is really that if you find yourself building a wizard, you > should first ask yourself what in your design makes a wizard > necessary, and see if can be simplified.
Ok, I'll jump into this one with both feet using Tap3 and Spindle as an example. The new Component Wizard...oi In the default configuration you enter a name, have the option of choosing a project/namespace, indicate that a template should be generated (or not) . Pretty simple. The component is generated into the default location in the application - context/WEB-INF (for application, colocated with a library file if not) I believe off the top of my head. If one does not move to the second page, the component will be specificed to use the BaseComponent as a class. The second page is choose a class/create a class - not worth discussing. However the first page has grown into a morass of crud because there are so many different places one can put things. So much stuff that I had to add a Show/Hide advanced options button. Put it anywhere you want and the wizard will update the .application/.library file if necessary. Use a custom template to generate the spec/template if you like. It's messy and I've deliberately avoided adding more features as I'm of the belief the wizard was becoming LESS useful the more doodads were added. I'm a long way off from the Tap 4 redo of the wizards and frankly I think it's going to be worse (have no facts to back that up as of yet). I know I know blah blah. The point is the more you want it to do, the less useful it becomes (and more bug prone). And if you add everything the people ask for the tool itself becomes an impediment to learning the framework. Geoff --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
