[Lazarus] In search of a component for holding a table of strings

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

On 2017-01-10 12:10, Jürgen Hestermann via Lazarus wrote:
> I can also apply some more sophisticated functions like attribute change, delete, rename, etc.
> where I would not like to be resticted on the number of files in any way.

You don't need to see those items to apply those attributes. Specify
some file criteria, specify the attribute changes and apply. The result
can be a count of affected files. And if your application is well
designed, you can undo that action too.


> I hate all these limited (mostly web) applications that split such large lists into pages
> where I have to choose a new page first just to move down a bit.
> A rediculous restriction.

Indeed, and that is not what I was suggesting.

> 
>  > A end-user always knows what they
>  > are looking for, more or less, (otherwise they wouldn't be in that
>  > screen).
> 
> I disagree again!
> In most cases I (and I think most users) only have a vague imagination of what I am looking for.
> I first need an overview to make further decisions (for example about a filter).

"vague" means you more or less know what you are looking for. My point
exactly.

NO end-user simply goes into an application screen and randomly browses
50 million data records (which will take years scanning visually), and
then only comes up with an idea of what they want to do with that
information. Instead they will go into a screen with the intend to find
a subset of data - say all electricity suppliers for a region in a town.
If they didn't have such an intent (no matter how big or small), they
would not be using the application or be in that screen to start with.


> Filtering: Yes. But it's not always the first step!

So pulling in 50+ million records into a data grid over a internet
connection (or worse, a dial-up connection) simply for the sake of it,
then only filtering down the data.... all seems very inefficient.

Put another way, lets populate a dropdown combobox with 50 million items
and set the item display limit to 15 items. So if you open that, and
move the scrollbar with the mouse only 1 pixel, you'll probably scroll
the items by 100,000. Absolute pointless behaviour and design.

I cannot see a single use case where that will be a good idea.  If you
have the time, read the book "About Face 3: The Essentials of
Interaction Design". You might learn something.



Regards,
  Graeme

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fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal
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