JSEditDialog - Preview

You can now download a video which previews the new TJSEditDialog component. TJSEditDialog is a descendant of TJSDialog which adds edit functionality.

Think of replacements for InputBox and InputQuery but heaps better. The download is just under 15 meg in WMV format. It was about 35meg in flash format.

Created with the new version of Camtasia which has some nice new features.

While not officially released you can preorder. It does require a registered TJSDialog license.

Purchase the TJSDialog Pack for 80 EUR - Share*it!
Purchase just TJSEditDialog for 40 EUR (existing TJSDialog customers only) - Share*it!

Download the Video - Video Download
Download the Demo shown in the video - Demo Download




Enjoy!

Ann: QC Plus 1.0 now available

QC Plus is the native windows QualityCentral client that I've been developing off and on since 2004.

It was windows client formally called JED, QC.

You can download the installation from the download page on my website:
http://www.jed-software.com/qc_download.htm

There are a heap of features in this version, but I'd hate to spoil the fun of finding them all by telling you what they all are.

There is a short video in the support section detailing a common question, that also shows a few features (if you can stand the first 20 seconds of my mumbling and indecision )
http://www.jed-software.com/qc_support.htm

It should play nice with existing JED, QC RC2 installations, if not, you may want to delete your cached data (steps on the support page).

There is a help file included that is actually quite full and has not only user interface features but also some info about QualityCentral in general.

There are some other articles in the works and hopefully I will be able to post a link to them soon.

If you find a bug in the client you can choose to do either of the following things:

1) Ignore it and get frustrated everytime you come across it
2) Email me about it (my email is in the about box)
3) Post it in QualityCentral against the "JED QC" platform in the QualityCentral project. Please search incase it is already in there though.

I'd like to take the time to thank the following folks for helping out:

* Dave and Levi from Clever Icons for donating the splash image and icons - www.clevericons.com
* Steema Software for donating TeeChart PRO to me to use - http://www.steema.com
* Sinan at InstallAware for the copy of Installaware Studio - www.installaware (The setup is really slick and shows what you can do with an MSI installation)

A special thanks to all the testers for the feedback, requests and for keeping me interested along the way.

Enjoy

QC Plus: Rating reports

There is a lot of talk about voting and rating reports in QualityCentral on the newsgroups at the moment. A common issue is that people don't truly understand what each of these items are for.

I'm going to focus on report rating for this post because I've just unwillingly changed the user interface to QC Plus. About 3 days before the version 1.0 release because of this discussion.

First disclaimer: I like the original implementation of rating a report interface. If you know what rating a report means, there is nothing wrong with the user interface. If you don't take the time to find out what rating a report means, you could mess it up.

If you don't take the time to find out what the brake pedal does, you could die.

The new user interface is now the default user interface for report rating. You have to use the new interface at least once, before being able to revert back to the previous (or alternative) interface.

The changes made

1. Where possible when rating a report the text now mentions Quality. So instead of "Rate Report" it is "Rate Report Quality". Will that help, probably not.
2. The Rating / Voting group visible when viewing a report is now captioned as Feedback. When rating a report you are providing feedback to a) the report creator b) other users and c) your friendly neighborhood sysop.
   
3. Where previously you clicked on the value you wanted to rate a report, you now have to click a button captioned "Set Quality". Unfortunately Set Report Quality didn't really fit so a compromise for the caption text had to be reached. Will be interesting to see what the German translation of that text will be!
   

When you press the Set Quality button the following dialog displays:

Second disclaimer: Text isn't final. If you have suggestions feel free to post a comment or email me (available in profile).

You then select the radiobuttons text that you think best describes the quality of the report; then click OK. If you are playing the numbers game - "rating value") "rating string"

1. Useless
2. Poor
3. Average
4. Good
5. Excellent
   

If you want the old, better and more efficient (my opinion naturally) interface back - check the I prefer to use the alternate rating interface. The option only sticks when you click OK - so that is like confirming you now understand what rating a report really means!

I've also updated the help file that ships with QC Plus to include further detail and a little FAQ about rating the quality of a report. Clicking the link will take you to that specific page.

Naturally even with such a dialog guiding the user, abuse or neglect can still occur.

Clear as mud, eh?

JSDialog - Update now available

As mentioned yesterday, the new version of TJSDialog has been released to registered users.

You can download a compiled version of the main demo for the component.

More information about the new release available from http://www.jed-software.com

To purchase your own license(s) visit the purchase page.

JSDialog - Check these out

An update for TJSDialog should be available tomorrow. Here are a couple of dialogs you can create using TJSDialog the you can't with the native Vista API.

The native API doesn't even support a header section, let alone a header section with a gradient background.

The native API supports radiobuttons. TJSDialog supports radiobuttons and given the powerful nature of TJSDialog, it can also support checkboxes inplace of the radiobuttons. An extra component is even included so you don't have to handle the required events. All the work is done for you.

The commandlink control used in TJSDialog is more advanced than the default Vista implementation. You can assign an additional picture (such as what is displayed on the Copy file dialog) as well as assign the additional picture or glyph from a specific image list.

There are a number of other additional features in TJSDialog that isn't included when you use the native API, apart from the fact that TJSDialog works under Win2000 and WinXP (and should also work under Win95 and Win98).

The code for TJSDialog compiles in every Delphi version from Delphi 5 through to RAD Studio 2007 (except Delphi 8).

Custom Controls
With TJSDialog you can even use other vendors controls to keep a consistent look and feel for your entire application, including the dialogs. This means that if you use one of the custom Raize or Developer Express styles, you can replace the default Buttons on TJSDialog with a button from one of these vendors and not have your dialogs look totally different from your application.

Don't like the TJSDialog progress bar implementation, replace it with a thirdparty one.

TJSDialog is extremely powerful, it is just waiting for you to unlock it. It is so powerful that you will find that many custom forms in your projects can be removed and replaced with TJSDialog components. I have done this several times in projects of my own.

Component Editor
TJSDialog ships with a comprehensive component editor that offers preview functionality. This way it is easy to experiment with properties and easily check how the dialog will look.

You can visit the TJSDialog website for further information.