RE: [nebula-dev] CalendarCombo + CDateTime Mashup

["Peter Centgraf" <peter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From what I can tell, the CalendarCombo is distinguished by its custom date
picker and the fact that it uses a native Combo.  I can adapt the date
picker to work with CDateTime, but I can't use a native Combo without losing
features.  I personally don't know what advantages the native Combo offers,
so I'm not sure whether we should eliminate it.  If it isn't important, we
could roll all of the CalendarCombo code into CDateTime and retire it as a
separate sub-project.  I'd love to have other CDateTime committers.  Emil,
what do you think?

Here's a preview of what I want to put on the wiki about the various date
selector widgets....

DateTime:

Full native implementation
    - Integrates well with every SWT platform
    - Does not support custom visual styles, such as SWT.FLAT
    - Does not include a graphical time picker
    - Does not support custom string formats
    - Does not support editing date and time simultaneously
    - Native style keyboard input
Supports a stand-alone calendar mode, but not a formatted text mode
Field-based data model
    - Localization always matches global platform default
    - Difficult to bind to Java Date or Calendar types
    - Supports single-selection only


CDateTime:

Uses a custom combo box implementation
    - Supports SWT.FLAT style
    - May not behave like a default platform Combo
Supports multiple date and time pickers
    - Includes a unique analog-clock style time picker
    - Default date picker looks more like GTK than Win32 native
    - Supports editing date, time, or both simultaneously 
Supports a stand-alone formatted text mode, but not a calendar mode
Supports custom string formats
    - Values can be edited field-by-field
    - String format may be customized on each instance 
      (not limited to JVM Locale defaults)
Keyboard input
    - Rich support for arrow keys, scroll wheel, etc.
    - Field-based tab navigation
Both fine-grained and coarse-grained change events
    - Client code can choose to ignore intermediate states
Data model is a Java Date
    - Easy to bind to domain objects with Date or Calendar data type
    - Supports single-selection only


CalendarCombo:

Combines a native Combo with a custom date picker
    - Does not support SWT.FLAT on Windows
    - Looks and acts native on every SWT platform
    - Date picker looks like MS Outlook widget
      (not like Win32 native widget)
Does not support stand-alone calendar or formatted text modes
Supports custom string formats
    - String format may be customized on each instance
No support for keyboard input
No support for time component
Data model is Java Calendar
    - Easy to bind to domain objects with Date or Calendar data type
      (as long as you don't care about the time component)
    - Supports single-selection only


DateChooserCombo

Uses a custom combo box implementation
    - Supports SWT.FLAT style
    - Supports a custom button graphic
    - May not behave like a default platform Combo
Uses a custom date picker
    - Customizable color themes
    - Supports display of week numbers
    - Does not match any native implementation
    - No time picker
Suppports both stand-alone calendar and formatted text modes
Supports custom string formats
    - String format may be customized on each instance
    - Time can be edited via text, but not graphically
Keyboard input
    - Supports use of arrow keys but not the scroll wheel
    - No field-based tab navigation
Data model is a Java Date or Collection<Date>
    - Easy to bind to domain objects with Date or Calendar data type
    - Supports single-selection in combo mode, single- or multi-selection
      in stand-alone calendar mode


Does anyone else have something to add or corrections to make?  I'm going to
turn this into a matrix layout before I post it to the wiki.

--
Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: nebula-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:nebula-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Chris Gross
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 10:26 AM
To: Nebula Dev
Subject: Re: [nebula-dev] CalendarCombo + CDateTime Mashup

Hi Peter,

Hmm... I think your email points that we need some unification of our 
datetime widgets.  It sounds like you'd like to include the calendar 
popup from CalendarCombo with the date modification portion of 
CDateTime.  I wonder if you and Emil could work on something to 
completely combine the two widgets?

Is that something that sounds interesting to you Peter?  Emil?

Regards,
-Chris