Will the use of tables as a layout change?

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Steven Heynderickx wrote on 06 Feb 2010 22:55

I understand that a table is a simple and straight forward way of displaying data, but I wish that in the future there will be a way to leave the table and use a free way of laying out your form-view and your form-edit.

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Comments: 2

pieterh 06 Feb 2010 23:42

No, there will not be such a feature, at least not for form editing. Form data will eventually work in templates.

Also, could you please use more descriptive titles for your subthreads. "Tables" means nothing at all as a title.

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pieterh 07 Feb 2010 08:47

There are several reasons to not offer a fully customizable form layout tool at this time:

• It is expensive to make (consider how to lay out fields in a page that changes width on each browser)
• Experience shows that simple tabular forms are good enough for most cases (and it's standard on the web)
• Experience shows that it's easier for people to use tabular forms (learn once, use everywhere)
• A mechanical layout can be improved over time, and all forms benefit (hand-designed forms cannot)
• There are no compelling use cases that fail with the current form design.

So it's simpler, cheaper, and better (in my experience of making very large order management web applications).

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