Agentry WPF Text Alignment

[Former Member]

I would like to know if anyone has a trick to getting the text to align in the tile display lists. ON the left list I want the order type to align regardless of how big the order # is.  On the right I want the check boxes to align on the left side.  Any tricks to making this happen?

 

[Former Member]

Final attempt...  for the order id and order type ... i merged them into one field with an update rule.  The rule pads the order id to max 15 and then concatenates the order type;  I looks like the alignment is better within the same order type.  But when the order id is different lengths (eventhough we are 0padding with spaces).... the alignment is still not consistent.

[Former Member]

Heather

Noted that you just opened an incident 160306 regarding text alignment. I would like to think that I have answered the questions at last on the left pane in the ticket. Feel free to follow up with me in the incident.

Note: It's hard to commit to the request where your order type would align regardless of the size of the order id if you do not establish an upper limit of the length of order id. In the example you gave in the incident, the order id field width is to small. It would make better sense if we establish that upper limit, and have the the order type starting at column position that is larger than the sum of the starting position of the order id and this upper limit order id field limit (which I anticipate is the width you define for the order id field). That would be my best bet.

Regards,

Raymond Kwong

SAP Product Support

[bill_froelich]

Raymond/Mark,

Can you please confirm the incident number.  I was unable to find it under that number.

Work Manager has the same alignment issues (although not as drastic).  I believe this is an issue with the WPF client.

For Work Manager, the screen is defined as 30 columns and fields are positioned to specific row / column starting values.  So while the physical width of the column will vary based on the dimensions of the screen / resolution, for each tile the column widths should be identical.  Therefore everything should align no matter the size of the number.

Also, since screens are shared across platforms I would expect to have the same issue on iPad for example if this were not a WPF issue.  iPad aligns as expected for Work Manager.

--Bill

[Former Member]

Bill-- incidnet is 160305 / 2016 Agentry wpf text alignment issues

Here's my latest attempt to fix alignment: 

image #1 shows the text alignment issues after adjusting the order and order type fields widths and padding to max width with spaces

image #2  shows the text alignment issues after adjusting the order description by padding to max with spaces. 

So even with the suggestions provided, I am still having alignment issues.

[mark_pe]

Bill,

Your statement: "Also, since screens are shared across platforms I would expect to have the same issue on iPad for example if this were not a WPF issue.  iPad aligns as expected for Work Manager." So is this the issue?

From looking at sample Work Manager,the product team decided to only use the IPAD screen to be used for both iPAD and for Windows Platform.

Based on discussion with different engineering client team before, each client uses a display form factor that will be utilized for display optimization for that particular client.

So let us take this example of an out of the box Work manager.

the picture above uses the screen for both Windows and IPAD.  So SMP/Agentry will detect during transmit that the Windows version is not available so the next best thing is to use the iPAD. So if the display form factor for IPAD/Iphone is used, this may be the reason iPAD is working without issue. But for WPF it is just trying to accomodate it.

What if we just create a form factor for Windows Platform WPF, would the issue still occur?

So as a test, create a platform for Windows and generate a tile list for Windows would the alignment be resolved?  So this could be a found field issue wherein sharing of platform screen may have some discrepancy in display form factor.

So as a test, if WPF form factor is use would the alignment be better and the result of this test can specify to the Work Manager team to add the Windows Platform or a new screen in the out of the box version?  If this can be tested then we can file for a change request based on our field analysis to the Work Manager team to add another platform for that screen and to specifically design a screen for WPF instead of sharing the iPAD/Iphone screen for WPF.

Regards,

Mark Pe
SAP Platinum Support Engineer

[mark_pe]

Heather,

I always think of Agentry screen design like Website design.  The main screen and its different fields host your list tile and tile screen (Like in Website Frame design).  The screen when displayed will try to point to the corresponding tile screen that pertains your data. You may view the results of that by itself.  When you do the screen by itself does it show the bullet as aligned? 

Overall the screen normally tries to do some ratio and balance on how to display the data as best as it could when it does the automatic configuration or display.  This is how I read most of the design thinking (Jira development notes) done in Agentry screen layout depending on client.

So if there is a trick, it will require understanding that you have a top level frame design that points to its individual field with pointers to specific pages.  It may require understanding how to break apart the overall column or row or worst case adding spaces to do alignment.  Sometimes if you have the same type of device with the same type of dimension, by simply adding spaces will do the trick.

I am not sure if the right part of your picture are labels to a button or are they text fields. You may even try isolating the button by itself (no text) then use text fields in your division of columns to see if this works for you.

Right Page tile

----------------------------
|10|25 text                 | - row 1
|[]  | this is text 1        | - row 2
|[]  | this is text 2        | - row 3

Screen field 1 button radio (0, 2)
Screen field 2 button radio (0,3)

Screen field Text 1 (1,2 - width 25)

Screen field Text 2 (1,3 - width 25)

In Website design most of the framing is done by rows and column and understanding the total length available for each of the text.  So if the length of the description cannot be determined as we never know how long the text are, we can at least separate the column in pre-defined fashion so we can control the starting text that will be added to the column and row (think Excel but put it in mobile devices wherein the OS or platform will try to rearrange as best to provide a good enough balance with available real estate).

Regards,

Mark Pe
SAP Platinum Support Engineer

[bill_froelich]

Typically we would define the screen as 100 columns and then set the field column position accordingly to get the alignment desired.  How do you have those fields defined?  Also when version of the WPF client are you using?

I would suggest also looking at the latest SP12 WPF client as there were a number of windowing changes (including adding a back button to be like iOS).

--Bill

[Former Member]

Bill... I'm running the wpf 12 client and do have the screen designed with 100 columns and 100 rows.  The fields are all set to type "DEFAULT".  The object properties are NONE and the values are set during update rules. 

[Former Member]

I attempted to change the type of fields to read only strings without change in display.

[bill_froelich]

It would appear to be a bug.  I see similar, although not as drastic, alignment issues using the latest WPF client and our Work Manager product.  I would recommend opening an issue with support.

--Bill