GSoC 2011: Week 8

This week's work was to fix bugs and test the interface. Some pending issues were fixed like:

• The display field of a table is the defualt selected value for DataLabel and if not selected it defaults to the display field also.
• The edit functionality was malfunctioning, there were issues with null values on fileds. The Datapoint display form now includes a null checkbox to indicate null value. 

  I ran some tests on the interface to check response timings and also asked some users to try and give suggestions. Some of the things that came up were:

• The input phase, when we select the two fields; on selection of a field the data-type,operators and value field change and it takes some time. I was suggested to improve upon the response time there.
• The plot generation process also slow according to some users. If we are accessing the database locally (on the same system) it is relatively fine but when accessed on a remote server, it slows down. 
• Depending on the resolution, the plot and the Data point display form can appear adjacent to each other or one below the other (the plot up and the form below it)
• One of the user reported that his chrome browser crashed once on the plot generation phase.
• Some users suggested that the divs are not alligned properly. For example, for a higher resolution when the plot and form appear adjacent to each other, the plot div is slightly higher than the form div. So it did not look good.
• Some users were more interested in have the plot of text fields( fields that are strings and not only numeric), which is not currently available in the interface.

So looking at the response I got from these tests, I have to focus on response timings more and include the plot functions of strings next. Also, the positioning of the Data-point form and plot is a problem. It could well be fixed as Marc suggested, by having a dialogue box type form which appears at the center of the screen when we click a point and disappears after we edit/view and not always have it on the screen.  The input phase can be improved by passing the entire table information(field type, collation, operators and value field) as json and using jQuery to update it onChange.