Future standard GUI library

[Frank Millman]

"Wolfgang Keller" <feliphil at gmx.net> wrote in message 
news:20130612222819.2a044e86ab4b6defe1939a04 at gmx.net...
>
> But could it be that you have never seen an actually proficient user of
> a typical "enterprise" application (ERP, MRP, whatever) "zipping"
> through the GUI of his/her bread-and-butter application so fast that
> you can not even read the titles of windows or dialog boxes.
>
> Obviously, this won't work if the client runs on this pathological
> non-operating system MS (Not Responding), much less with "web
> applications".
>
[...]
>
>>
>> On a LAN, with a proper back-end, I can get instant response from a
>> web app.
>
> I have been involved as "domain specialist" (and my input has always
> been consistently conveniently ignored) with projects for web
> applications and the results never turned out to be even remotely usable
> for actually productive work.
>

Hi Wolfgang

I share your passion for empowering a human operator to complete and submit 
a form as quickly as possible. I therefore agree that one should be able to 
complete a form using the keyboard only.

There is an aspect I am unsure of, and would appreciate any feedback based 
on your experience.

I am talking about what I call 'field-by-field validation'. Each field could 
have one or more checks to ensure that the input is valid. Some can be done 
on the client (e.g. value must be numeric), others require a round-trip to 
the server (e.g. account number must exist on file). Some applications defer 
the server-side checks until the entire form is submitted, others perform 
the checks in-line. My preference is for the latter.

I agree with Chris that on a LAN, it makes little or no difference whether 
the client side is running a web browser or a traditional gui interface. On 
a WAN, there could be a latency problem. Ideally an application should be 
capable of servicing a local client or a remote client, so it is not easy to 
find the right balance.

Do you have strong views on which is the preferred approach.

Thanks for any input.

Frank Millman