On Aug 15, 2004, at 2:17 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
To me, data grids are a pretty critical functionality....
For me too, but I think you're talking about a very specific implementation of a data grid, perhaps the type one sees in spreadsheets or the type supported by HTML.
Not HTML. But speadsheets, or iTunes, or many other data grid driven program types.
The built-in multi-column field has been doing me just fine for years. You can put up to 4GB of tab-delimited data into it and get instant results by setting the tabStops property. It supports most of the behaviors commonly associated with database display, including properties for selecting either single or multiple lines, and even discontiguous selection.
Yes, and I've used those features, and it can work OK, but well, it just isn't powerful enough, and frankly, too flakey, especially if the user is to be able to edit the content. Layout is clumsy...
where entire multi-field cards are used instead of a single multi-column line in a grid. This is not a workable solution in many cases, since it doesn't support relational sorting, etc.
What is "relational sorting"?
Column sorting. Obviously cards full of fields do not support column sorting, so I put it into another term. Relational sorting (column sorting) allowing rows to be sorted by the different relationships they have with the columns.
The built-in sort command will do well with the built-in multi-column list object, with the only caeat being that no single line of text can be longer than 64k (which is probably wider than would be practical for most common uses anyway).
Yes, I'm sure that is far wider than is needed. But a multi-column field doesn't do a very good job of simulating a data grid. I don't doubt that you have found it OK for your applications, or somehow made it work. In my case, the market particular product will be very critical of this, and anything less than "so good they don't notice anything other than good" is too little.
It isn't an actual OS native grid
Where did you get the impression any OS provides a data grid control?
If there's a native data grid control in OS X or XP it's very new; for the previous 20 years everyone rolled their own.
Well, Applescript studio has one, so on the Mac at least it my not be part of the OS, but it is provided by Apple for constructing UI... I should probably say "one which appears native, matches the rest of the OS, and would be considered by the end user to seem appropriate on their system."
--
Troy
RPSystems, Ltd.
http://www.rpsystems.net
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