Converting v6 project to v7

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appleton
Posts: 37
Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2012 3:40 pm

Re: Converting v6 project to v7

Unread post by appleton »

I spoke too soon. :(

I am seeing the mis-positioning again - but I do have a possible clue!

The Ewriter window remembers its size each time it is closed. I noticed that he positioning seems OK when the EWriter window is quite wide. As I made the EWriter window narrower (and closed and re-spawned it with the same link/anchor) there came a point where the positioning started to drift and got quite bad for a fairly narrow width.

After a bit more experimenting, it seems to have something to do with the width of left-hand topic menu pane.

My longest topic title is about 30 characters. If I keep the window wide, and drag the left menu separator so that the menu is wide aswell, then positioning is fine. As I progressively make the window width narrower (and close/respawn), the menu pane remains the same width and positioning is OK, until a point where the window appears with the menu pane the same width BUT it immediately resizes slightly narrower.

I think it might be this sudden automatic resizing of the topic menu pane that results in the incorrect positioning in the main text pane. The menu pane gets slightly narrower so the main text pane consequently jumps slightly wider to use up the freed width, but this throws the positioning out - maybe the main text pane needs and extra repositioning event after the topic menu pane auto resizes?

As before, the mis-positioning only happens when the EWriter is spawned/respawned. Positioning works fine if you use the back button or click a link that goes to the same anchor. I can now see why this would be - because the back button or clicking a link does not result in that topic menu resize event.
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Tim Green
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Re: Converting v6 project to v7

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hmm. I'll have a look at this today and let you know. :?
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Tim Green
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Re: Converting v6 project to v7

Unread post by Tim Green »

Update: OK, I have it now. I wasn't seeing it because I wasn't adjusting the width of the nav pane. The V3 skins remember the width of the pane and adjust it automatically to the last value set by the user -- even between sessions and even in EWriter. (This is done with modern browsers' local storage, or with cookies if that isn't available.) What is happening is that the adjustment of the width is happening effectively at the same time as the scrolling operation, resulting in confused values for the target of the scroll operation. Well, actually nothing ever happens simultaneously in JavaScript, since it's a single-threaded system, but for all intents and purposes that's what's going on.

It's a simple fix. I'm mailing you copies of the updated JS files that need to be replaced in the baggage (one set each for WebHelp and EWriter) that will solve the problem for you. 8)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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appleton
Posts: 37
Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2012 3:40 pm

Re: Converting v6 project to v7

Unread post by appleton »

Thanks Tim that's much better!

I occasionally get a mis-positioning when the window is sufficiently narrow that the topic menu overlays the page. Sometimes the positioning is OK and sometimes not - I haven't noticed a pattern to this.

But in general the positioning is great. Thankyou for your responsiveness. :)
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Tim Green
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Re: Converting v6 project to v7

Unread post by Tim Green »

appleton wrote:I occasionally get a mis-positioning when the window is sufficiently narrow that the topic menu overlays the page. Sometimes the positioning is OK and sometimes not - I haven't noticed a pattern to this.
I'll look into this before releasing it as an official update. What I sent you at the moment is just a 500ms delay before starting the scroll operation, to give the rest of the scripts time to get the nav box resizing finished. There are a couple of other options: One would be to check the position when the scroll is finished and correct if necessary. The other, which I'd like to avoid, is to poll for the completion of the nav width resize and only start the scroll when it's finished. I'd like to avoid that if possible, because polling is always much more expensive in terms of overheads than anything else. :?
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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