Neil's Green Book Report Testing (9-2009) -- History:

    Neil's comment Phil's response
1 Done There is still a debug statement printing to standard output in the release executable (you may have fixed this already) Fixed.
2 Addressed My original idea was that the user label column and the algorithm columns in the slot list in the Slot tab would only show up if the corresponding options to use these were checked on the Settings tab. Is this possible (or desirable)?

Two aspects of this were addressed in these two ways:

  1. When the aggregation period is "none" (with the full series displayed in a single table), users may still want to see summary rows (e.g. min and max). Neil and I did significantly change the semantics on the "Aggregation" tab (now called the Intervals" tab) to clarify the implemented behavior. SEE SCREENSHOTS.
  2. With regard to the showing of the "User Column Label" column on the Slots tab, it's not necessarily better to hide it -- esp. since the relevant toggle is on a different tab. Neil and I decided to leave this as is.
3 Addressed
(9-15) 		The View Existing Report... button was supposed to allow you to view a report file that has already been created by bringing up a file chooser. It currently appears to do the same thing as the Generate and View.. button - bring up the current device. This is doable. The current implementation brings up the currently existing Text or HTML document at the currently configured path.
4 Fixed
(9-11) 		The design was to use the File Type Association Manager to get the executable for viewing the report (whatever was specified for Text or HTML). Currently Generate brings up a window asking if you want to view it in a browser and if you answer No, no other options are available. We should discuss what the behavior should be. (If we use the File Type Association Manager there should be a link to it in the menus)
  1. Text files can now be opened using either the configured Text Viewer OR the HTML Browser (as set from the File Type Association Manager dialog).
  2. A menu item for showing the File Type Association Manager dialog was added to the Output Device editor's Output menu.
  3. When no file exists at the configured and selected report file path, that is reported in an error popup dialog.
5 Fixed
(9-11) 		There is some weirdness with the ordering of slots in the slot tab. The last entry can only be moved up one spot with the up arrow, but cannot be moved beyond that. If you sort on any of the columns, then the ordering arrows don't seem to function well at all (Should sorting even be enabled on the columns?). Sorting puts the numbers on the left out of order such that they no longer reflect the order of columns in the report.

The slot reording controls are coherent only when the list is sorted by the ordinal column (the first column). We did the simplest thing which was to disable slot sorting by other columns.

We could have instead disable the arrow keys when the list is in any other sort order. This wouldn't have actually been very useful without also adding a "Set" button next to the arrow buttons to set the current display order to the custom order (effectively re-enabling the arrow keys).

6 Done Context menu in the slot list for deleting, copying, etc. would be nice and perhaps expected by user. FIXED
7 Phil recommends no change. If you have columns with all NaNs and have aggregations selected, all aggregation rows are blank except for Sum which is zero. Seems like Sum should also be blank for consistency? Actually, I think the current implementation is best. The sum of no values is zero. The rationale for showing blanks for zeroes in series data (when configured as such) is that such zeroes actually represent a "no value" state. That's not true for the "sum" -- when there are no values, the sum really is zero.
8 Fixed
(9-10) 		User-entered device name is not currently saved with the device, but goes back to the original default name assigned to the device. FIXED
9 Fixed
(9-10 & 9-11) 		If you export a Green Book device and try to import it, you get a "File Interpretation Error" and then end up with an empty imported device. [9-10]: Fixed: The "File Interpretation Error" has been resolved. See CVS notes in Sim/cwOutputDevice.cpp.
[9-11]: Fixed: But the imported Report Device was ending up EMPTY -- ONLY IF there is Green Book Report name collision. See CVS notes in Sim/ReportDevice.cpp.
10 Fixed
(9-10) 		On copy of Green Book device, you get a default name of "Unknown Device00000" instead of "Green Book Report0000" FIXED
11 Fixed
(9-15) 		If you Generate and View an unconfigured report (no file specified) nothing happens and you get no feedback. Should be a message saying what is missing in the configuration. (what should be a minimally configured report for generating - a file specified and at least one slot?)

The "Generate and View" function should show an error message in the following to cases:

  • The directory path part of the configured output file path does not exist.
  • There is not at least one Slot in the slot list.
12 Implemented
(9-12 & 9-13)		 Options in the slot menu are currently not implemented. These "slot clipboard" functions need to be implemented.
13 SEE NEXT ITEM HTML option not currently implemented. This was enabled the day after Neil did this initial testing.
13b Implemented
(9-12 & 9-13)		 [9-11]: HTML Output: Neil suggested that there be configurations for cell background colors, for various types of cells (header, slot data, summary cells). The current implementation just uses a light yellow for column headers and summary cells, and white for slot data.

There are a few options here, including having users make use of the CSS configurations for colors. We'd have to add another style for Summary Cells. But I think I'll add seperate color chooser buttons for these colors:

  • Column Header
  • Row Header
  • Slot Data
  • Note Footnotes
  • Aggregate Summary
14 Fixed
(9-15) 		In Output Manager under Edit menu, need an icon for the Edit All Green Book Reports... item to be consistent with the other items. FIXED
15 It's OK. And it's all we can do. The ctl L for page breaks works for Wordpad and Word, but not in browser, Notepad, or Xemacs. Maybe there is no universal character for page breaks and this is the best we can do. Just thought I'd note this in case we can do something better. This really is the best we can do (in text files: ASCII Ctrl-L). Text files support is limited, by definition, to ASCII. It's GOOD that this works in Word! It does also work in printing, both from a text editor, and from a web browser.
16 Done Still need help documentation. Draft PDF copy linked from here (9-30-2009).
Document source in:
   /projects/riverware/doc/outputMgr/reports/
17 Addressed
(9-15) 		In the user interface, replace "Green Book Report" with "Series Table Report" (or some other general name).

Changed to "Tabular Series Slot Report"

Some other alternatives to "Series Table Report"

  • Series Spreadsheet Report
  • Series Report
  • Series Data Report
  • Series Report Device
  • Series Report File
  • Series Summary Report
  • Series Summary File

OR, if this will be adapted in the future to include other types of data, e.g. Scalars and Table Slots, perhaps merged with the prior RiverWare Model Report DEMO ... (with our without "Model") ...

  • (Model) Report
  • (Model) Data Report
  • (Model) Report Device
  • (Model) Report File   (consistent with the other devices)
  • (Model) Summary Report
  • (Model) Summary File