Re: Are you as polite and diplomatic as COBOL?...

Kellie,

As a person with limited vision, have you had any exposure to the issues covered
in (and referenced at)

"World Wide Access: Accessible Web Design"

at
http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Technology/universal.design.html

or any of the NUMEROUS other similar documents.

The "balloon" approach might be a good option for some, but it certainly would
NOT (IMHO) pass muster for a larger commercial or ANY government web-site. (Not
of course, that all of them DO meet either the guidelines or requirements
already available.)

--
Bill Klein
wmklein <at> ix.netcom.com
"James J. Gavan" <jgavandeletethis@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Lfwce.1165208$8l.136470@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Kellie Fitton wrote:
>> Hi Joe,
>>
>> someOne gave me a good idea on this yesterday --- its very subtle and
>> elegant
>> way of alerting the end-user, its a Balloon ToolTip control that hovers
>> quietly over
>> the edit box and displays a descriptive message and an icons. Thanks.
>>
>> Kellie.
>>
> Well OK - but it's just a little bit gimmicky. Be sure you use the x and y
> co-ordinates to locate the balloon near the offending field. Does the balloon
> take more code than a traditional messagebox - only coding both with APIs will
> tell you.
>
> Don't know if you've read up on it yet - but your ballooning fits into the
> category - drawing, painting, fonts and colouring, which tend to gobble up
> Windows resources. Just do a quick reference in the N/E help file on those
> terms - take a gander at the small M/F examples - they constantly remind you
> to 'destroy' these resources when no longer required.
>
> A stand-alone dialog like the one you sent me a copy of - no big deal. But use
> the same technique as callable from within a large application, then most
> certainly keep memory usage in mind.
>
> So happens I'm into data entry at the moment using Quickbooks for my small
> amount of accounting, (corporate), and QuickTax (personal), to keep the Tax
> man happy.
>
> Quickbooks - an excellent package - see if you can locate somebody with a copy
> and get them to give you a run through. Produced by Intuit, possibly even
> their own proprietary language, does a great job. Primarily black and white
> but uses pale colours (those RGBs) - select "Write Cheques" from the menu - up
> pops a pale light brown coloured cheque - the bottom half of the screen being
> a black and white G/L distribution for the cheque total.
>
> Similarly with journal entries they produce an alternating *** of white and
> light-green coloured lines; entries - the debit column shows as black on
> white/green and the credit column red on white/green. The carried forward
> balance column reflects as either black or red foreground, depending upon the
> balance.
>
> They are controlling the columns (looks like, but I'm reasonably certain it is
> NOT a Listview). So they anticipate you entering numerics for debit or
> credit - accidentally type something other than digits or the decimal-point
> and they have a little error box pop up, plain white but the top of the box
> has a jagged edge, like you had torn something off a strip of paper -
> obviously not your standard Windows control - but something they draw
> independently.
>
> As to the Tax return, main two/three pages, supplemented by schedules.
> Again some minor use of colouring - RGB. We can claim medical expenses
> (prescriptions, buying a chair or whatever) as a deduction. You don't get the
> whole amount but a percentage is used. So I see a line under expenses - Ahhh -
> that's where I'll put the medical expenses. Attempt to do it, throws up a
> message, "This line is supported by a Schedule - do you want to go to the
> schedule now ? Y/N).
>
> I mentioned the dates/SIN thinggy - IMPORTANT - be consistent on dates
> regularly using only one of the three :-
>
> ISO - yyyymmdd
> 'old' European - ddmmyyyyy
> US - mmddyyyy
>
> You can 'mask' your entryfields to indicate the format you want entered - the
> M/F GUI terminology or methods are "autoswipe" and "isAutoswipe" - absolutely
> meaningless to me - about four years after seeing them I found a reference in
> the Dialog System help file ! No doubt you can pick up on "atuoswipe"
> references for APIs.
>
> Depends upon application, but don't dance around between entering dollars with
> decimals or without decimals. Be consistent. I'm not into dollars and cents
> but instead either inches 99.999 or cms 999.99. Real tedious keying in all the
> digits or the decimals - so I accept numbers as integers and convert.
>
> For example and assume inches :-
>
> enter 1234 and I display 1.234
> enter 1 and I display 0.001
>
> Want to get the background on this - go to the \copylib and look at
> dlgTabbd.cbl :-
>
> method "createEntryfield-2"
>
> - does the set up for numeric fields and note it makes a callback to the
> following on the appropriate event :-
>
> method "displayDecimals"
>
> Could keep going - but remembered this one which can irritate a user no-end !
> Applies to both Entryfields and MLEs. Distinguish between those fields you
> "clear" when the user focuses and those where you allow "insert". It is really
> maddening for the user to have to backspace to clear an entryfield.
>
> "Clear" as in completely wiping out the displayed contents, currently reads
> "Bob" but user wants to re-enter "Robert".
>
> "Inserts" - Telephone Numbers, SINs, product codes etc. User initially entered
> for a telephone number "403 686 1234" but the area code should have been "404
> ...... Let the user arrow-move over to the characters to be corrected.
>
> Jimmy


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