werner purrer

Well I think sometumes you need both,
here is an example, if you read Carstens formlayout paper you will see
exactly one application type where an automated layout makes sense, forms.
What happened in the paper was that basically only colums where defined and
a factory got parameters which componend and the labeled text, everything
was layouted that way. This makes perfect sense since forms need a common
look and feel and have to be adjusted according to the model data which
they influence, but on the other hand I for instance see no way how an
automated layout mechanism makes sense for a specialiced general purpose
app like an imaging program.
I in fact see not too many application types where an automated approach
really makes sense, forms are the only one I can see currently.

Well Carstens approach is bascially 2/3ds of the way, your approach already
has been done often, by having business objects being parsed and the forms
to the objects are generated automatically, or by having a data xml
description where the form is generated, but again, this only works really
well with forms and nothing else. After all you always need a controller to
this approach and forms usually have a limited set of logic behind it which
can influence the model.


Well that is more a template mechanism problem, less a layout problem, but
maybe a combined template, layout approach is the holy grail.

Well again this can be done easily and many business apps do that, table
handling according to the content is not that hard to implement.


Not really the problem I see is, that automation is with the current state
of affairs only possible with a limited set of controller related
activties, thus the form handling is a perfect example of a thing which you
can auto layout (usually the controller has following actions, load, save,
veryfiy, update, create), but a more generalized approach is not that easy
because the controller actions can increase exponentially compared to a
simply form. You might get some semi automatisms by combining the whole
layout manager thing with a template like mechanism, where you basically
combine automated layouting approaches with a given set of predefined,
manually done layouts, which are changed given the current context of the
application.

But as I see it I see no way to find a general approach to automated layouts
for every application currently.

werner purrer

Well I think sometumes you need both,
here is an example, if you read Carstens formlayout paper you will see
exactly one application type where an automated layout makes sense, forms.
What happened in the paper was that basically only colums where defined and
a factory got parameters which componend and the labeled text, everything
was layouted that way. This makes perfect sense since forms need a common
look and feel and have to be adjusted according to the model data which
they influence, but on the other hand I for instance see no way how an
automated layout mechanism makes sense for a specialiced general purpose
app like an imaging program.
I in fact see not too many application types where an automated approach
really makes sense, forms are the only one I can see currently.

Well Carstens approach is bascially 2/3ds of the way, your approach already
has been done often, by having business objects being parsed and the forms
to the objects are generated automatically, or by having a data xml
description where the form is generated, but again, this only works really
well with forms and nothing else. After all you always need a controller to
this approach and forms usually have a limited set of logic behind it which
can influence the model.


Well that is more a template mechanism problem, less a layout problem, but
maybe a combined template, layout approach is the holy grail.

Well again this can be done easily and many business apps do that, table
handling according to the content is not that hard to implement.


Not really the problem I see is, that automation is with the current state
of affairs only possible with a limited set of controller related
activties, thus the form handling is a perfect example of a thing which you
can auto layout (usually the controller has following actions, load, save,
veryfiy, update, create), but a more generalized approach is not that easy
because the controller actions can increase exponentially compared to a
simply form. You might get some semi automatisms by combining the whole
layout manager thing with a template like mechanism, where you basically
combine automated layouting approaches with a given set of predefined,
manually done layouts, which are changed given the current context of the
application.

But as I see it I see no way to find a general approach to automated layouts
for every application currently.