User Interface Improvements

  1. User Interface Improvements
    1. Remove the frameset
    2. Direct link for document notifications
    3. Fixed areas (floating toolbar etc.)
      1. JSP pages with fixed areas rules:

  • Floating toolbar
  • Tightening of main page (remove footer space, etc.)
  • Direct link for document notifications


Remove the frameset

Developer: [Sergei Nemchaninov]

A typical application's window contains three frames:
1. The top frame (main toolbar); the frame is static and contains the workspace tabs "Personal", "Business", "Projects" along with other static decorations
2. The left frame (navigation bar for the current workspace); the frame contains workspace-specific tool links. Its content is one of 7 possible pages depending on the type of the workspace that is currently in context: Application, Business, Configuration, Enterprice, Methodology, Personal, Project
3. The main frame

Moreover, there were additional inner framesets that were located inside the main frame. After removing the outer frameset the inner framesets lost their container (main frame). This led to broken display/functionality of the inner framesets. So the inner framesets should also be removed.

To remove the main frameset I've created the following tags:
1. template:getDoctype that inserts the doctype declaration needed for the correct display of the css styles
2. template:getSpaceMainMenu that inserts the content of the former top frame
3. template:template:getSpaceNavBar that inserts the content of the former left frame

The tag template:getSpaceCSS was modified to add the needed css file references to the output html.


Direct link for document notifications

Developer: [Sergei Nemchaninov]

The link in the notification message looks like http://www.someserver.com/document/PropertyFrameset.jsp?id=7831&module=10
It links to the document properties web page, this page contains the additional frameset (in addition to the removed frameset defined in NavigationFrameset.jsp) to show different info about the specified document. This additional frameset was shown inside the former 'main' frame, but as we currently do not have the 'main' frame, this frameset should also be removed as it stopped functioning in proper way. So this task intersects with remove the frameset task.

Moreover, if the user is not logged in then he should be redirected to the requested page after logging in. It requires modifications in errors page and NavigationFrameset.jsp that should redirect the user to the requested page.



Fixed areas (floating toolbar etc.)

Developer: [Vladimir Malykhin]


About resolving of problem with unnecessary scrolling for the left corner toolbar, bottom action bar and footer.

There are five fixed areas (<div> blocks layout without frame-sets):

fixed left menuthe old frame was removed
fixed top headerthe old frame was removed
right top toolbarnew fixed area
bottom actions area (for some controls like as submit button, etc.)new fixed area
bottom footer with copyright infonew fixed area

Supported browsers: tested with Mozilla Firefox, IE 6 (IE 5 is supported too), IE 7, Opera.

The source code from 8_3_UI_cleanup_frames SVN branch is using.

JSP pages with fixed areas rules:


1. The declaration of <div> with id mainframe <div id="mainframe"> and appropriate to it the end tag </div> must be deleted.
2. Add the attribute id with value bodyWithFixedAreasSupport to the body-tag of the page, e.g.

<body class="main" id="bodyWithFixedAreasSupport" onLoad="setup();">


3. JSP page must have <div id='content'> after the body-tag and the declaration of (if present)

<tb:toolbar style="tool ... > ... </tb:toolbar> without end </div> tag (this </div> tag adds automatically)


4. If the JSP page contain the action bar on the page bottom, then tb:toolbar declaration should have bottomFixed="true" attribute

<tb:toolbar style="action" bottomFixed="true">


So actually CSS rules for fixed areas are:

body#bodyWithFixedAreasSupportthe actual attribute adds manually
div#topframeadds automatically
div#leftframeadds automatically
div#fixedRightTopadds automatically
div#fixedBottomLinethe actual attribute adds manually
div#fixedBottomFooteradds automatically
div#contentthe actual tag and the attribute add manually


[Vova Malykhin], February 15, 2007

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