[Printing-architecture] Coding the Common Printing Dialog and its interface

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

"Alex Wauck" <alex.wauck at gmail.com> writes:

> Clarification:
> It is an aspect ratio restriction.  If it was a simple height restriction,
> it would be easy.  Fixed aspect ratio is still a pain in the butt in Qt, and
> it has certain usability/user experience implications.  Plus, I'm not sure
> what the advantage is.  The ratio between the widths of the columns is
> useful and not a problem, but I would like to at least see a clear reason
> for making all columns the same height as the width of the second column.

Given my comments about i18n string issues, the only workable solution
I can think of when you really *have* to use a fixed aspect ratio (or
fixed dimensions for that matter) would be a widget with (on-demand)
scroll bars.

That said, scrolling horizontally is a seriously bad user experience.

Hope this helps,
> Alex
>
> On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 6:48 PM, Olaf Meeuwissen <olaf.meeuwissen at avasys.jp>
> wrote:
>
>> Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > Peter, what is the importance of your column height restrictions? Or is
>> > it only an aspect ratio restriction (see Alex' problems below)?
>>
>> As mentioned earlier in feedback on the CPD, absolute dimensions are
>> no good when you need to consider i18n and/or assistive technologies.
>> Given the various languages you will need to cater to, string lengths
>> will vary, considerably.  For certain scripts, small font sizes just
>> don't work.  For Japanese, for example, anything less than 12pt is
>> next to unreadable.  Even 12pt is only hardly bearable.
>>
>> > Josef, you as expert on automatic dialog creation, can you help Alex
>> > here? AFAIR there was only a restriction on the aspect ratio of the
>> > columns and not on the absolute height.
>>
>> Fixed aspect ratios may be okay, but, again, given the variation in
>> string lengths, I doubt it.  What may be two characters in Japanese
>> (corresponding to four Latin characters, space wise and using a fixed
>> width font) may very well be 20 characters in German.  That is to say,
>> when considering strings, the horizontal and vertical dimensions vary
>> independently so trying to maintain a fixed aspect ratio is at best
>> cumbersome.
>>
>> Also note, that word wrapping may not work as you are used to in CJK
>> locales.
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>>
>> > [snip]
>> --
>> Olaf Meeuwissen                   FLOSS Engineer -- AVASYS Corporation
>> FSF Associate Member #1962           sign up at http://member.fsf.org/
>>

-- 
Olaf Meeuwissen                   FLOSS Engineer -- AVASYS Corporation
FSF Associate Member #1962           sign up at http://member.fsf.org/