PP2 niggle

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Martin Wynne
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PP2 niggle

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Tim,

A slight niggle with PP2. :)

If a topic title is too long for the tabs, it is truncated... . Which is fine -- a mixture of wide and narrow tabs would look odd.

However, in the tabs menu list, the same truncated title is used. But there is a whole page clear to increase the width of the menu to whatever is needed for the full titles, within reason.

Can this be changed? Where do I look to put the full title into the menu <li> tag instead of the truncated one?

Thanks,

Martin.
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Tim Green
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Martin,

This is a good point. It's something that needs to be changed in the scripts. I don't want to make it unlimited because even with space for a very long title a menu that was 200 characters wide would simply look silly. But I'll set a different value for the tabs menu. What do you think would be reasonable? I would tend to somewhere between 40 and 60 characters.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Martin Wynne
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Tim Green wrote:But I'll set a different value for the tabs menu. What do you think would be reasonable? I would tend to somewhere between 40 and 60 characters.
Thanks Tim,

I've counted some of my titles and I have several in the 50-60 range. The longest is 71: "A quick guide to creating a tandem turnout in versions 0.78.e and later". It could be shortened -- titles line-wrap in the TOC so I have never made a big effort to keep them as short as possible.

Knowing now that it may get truncated, it could also be rewritten so that truncation has less effect on the meaning: "Creating a tandem turnout - a quick guide for versions 0.78.e and later". Which is an improvement in any event. :) I shall need to do this with many of my titles to provide more meaningful truncations in the tabs.

For the tabs menu I suggest a limit of say 60 characters. Truncations beyond that are unlikely to affect the meaning, and if they do the title needs rewriting anyway.

Alternatively, the script could reduce the font size for very long titles, so that the tabs menu doesn't widen to more than say 50% of the topic pane width.

As a further suggestion, can we have the full title in a mouseover hint, when mousing over a truncated tab or truncated menu item? :)

regards,

Martin.
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Martin Wynne
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

p.s. Tim,

Another slight niggle related to the tabs menu. It can be hidden by clicking the icon a second time. However, focus then remains on the icon, and clicking anywhere else on the screen does nothing the first time. It needs two clicks to do anything, the first one simply shifting focus. This is irritating when the menu is visible (normal Windows menus don't work that way), but when the menu is not visible it feels like a significant bug.

regards,

Martin.
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Tim Green
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Martin,

I've set the tab menu truncation limit to 60, that should be more than enough.
As a further suggestion, can we have the full title in a mouseover hint,
I'll do that for the main browsing tab, which can't be undocked. The mouseover hint for all other tabs is occupied by the "Double-click to undock" message, and for the moment I'm reluctant to change that. And I really don't think it's necessary in the tab menu once the length there is upped to 60.
It can be hidden by clicking the icon a second time. However, focus then remains on the icon,
Actually, that's not what's happening. Because of the complexity of the layout with iFrames containing other pages all click-to-close functions get temporarily attached to an invisible div called unclicker that gets overlaid over the entire layout. I'll look into eliminating the second click but this isn't something I can change in the short term: Events in JavaScript only bubble up to their parents, so clicks on the unclicker div would have to be actively captured and then triggered on items below it.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Martin Wynne
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Thanks Tim, 60 characters should be plenty.

Another niggle:

I have a topic: "Users Own Topics". It truncates on the tab to "Users Own Topic...", with the 3-dot ellipsis taking up more space than the letter s would have done!

Truncation needs to be suppressed if the number of characters to be removed is less than say 4. i.e. the test limit is 4 more than the limit used in the truncation function.

I do seem to be being niggly. I hope I'm being constructive and not just a thorn in your flesh? :)

regards,

Martin.
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Tim Green
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Martin,

I'll make a note of the ellipsis issue -- maybe the algorithm should be that words don't get truncated if less than three characters are clipped. It's always annoyed me that the ellipsis character is so wide. That's really the ellipsis character, it's not three dots. :|

Don't worry about niggles, I can take it. On June 24th I will have been managing this forum for ten years... :twisted:
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John Waller
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by John Waller »

Tim Green wrote:Don't worry about niggles, I can take it. On June 24th I will have been managing this forum for ten years... :twisted:
Quite an achievement. Congrats.

"Managing this forum" is rather an understatement of your contribution in that time.

You are one of the reasons I keep coming back to this software to learn more and more new tricks about H&M and web design in general (my sole output format is Webhelp).

Your engineering and programming mind invariably finds a solution or workaround for even the most esoteric of questions here.
Regards

John Waller
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Tim Green
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi John,

Thanks for the flowers! :)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Aitch
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by Aitch »

John Waller wrote:Quite an achievement. Congrats.

"Managing this forum" is rather an understatement of your contribution in that time.

You are one of the reasons I keep coming back to this software to learn more and more new tricks about H&M and web design in general (my sole output format is Webhelp).

Your engineering and programming mind invariably finds a solution or workaround for even the most esoteric of questions here.
What he said!
And sometimes, cake is NOT just a dream :)
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Tim Green
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Re: PP2 niggle

Unread post by Tim Green »

What he said!
And sometimes, cake is NOT just a dream :)


:hoorahg:
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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