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!!!SELF SERVICE 2.0
The purpose of this document is to describe the technical aspects of the Self-Service 2.0 Layout. Self-Service 2.0 was designed and implemented with the following technical goals in mind:
1 Should be free of the screen realty and browser-sizing issues, which plague the former Self-Service layout.
2 Should conform to current web-standards and trends.
3 Should be compatible across standards-based browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla FireFox 2.
4 Prototype should conform to High Line standard screen resolution of 800x600.
Layout
The first thing the user will notice is the layout itself. Gone is the over-crowding of boxes in the action bar, gone is the row of ambiguous Business Role icons and gone is the side navigation bar.
Maximizing Screen Realty
Several things were done in the layout to maximize screen realty including trimming the action bar and Business Roles layouts, and changing the side navigation bar into a popup.
The Business Roles layout is now a widget, which displays the current Business Role and displays a drop-down menu of all available Business Roles when a mouse pointer hovers over it.
The Action bar layout has been trimmed down to display only application-level buttons. The form action buttons (Save, Revert and Print) were relocated to just above the top-right corner of the content area and will be visible when a form is
open and hidden when the splash screen is displayed.
The show navigation menu button was relocated to the immediate left of the content title.
The side navigation bar has been replaced by a floating menu, which is hidden by default. The floating menu is “brought up” by clicking the show navigation button. The navigation menu floats over the content area and will display a submenu of menu items when hovering over a menu item in the first menu. The floating menu is dismissed by clicking anywhere in the layout not belonging to the menu layout.
Handling various browser-sizes and screen resolutions
The former Self-Service layout was “liquid” as it would stretch or contract to fit the dimensions of the browser window. Various browser-sizes and screen resolutions often cause issues in such layouts including unwanted wrapping of web objects or over-expanded text-areas.
This issue is addressed and resolved in the prototype layout by making it a “fixed-width” type layout. Whether the browser size or screen resolution is at 800x600 or 1600x1200, there will be no contraction or expansion issues.
800x600 1024x768 1280x1024
Cross-Browser Compatibility and Web Standards
Browser Compatibility and following Web Standards actually go hand-in-hand. In order to be compatible with Mozilla FireFox 2, all HTML, CSS and JavaScript had to conform to current Web Standards.
The process of ensuring browser compatibility also involved making the layout completely frameless and replacing all HTML TABLE elements with DIV and SPAN elements. In addition, all HTML is completely styled using CSS ensuring a clear separation between style and content.
Mozilla FireFox Microsoft Internet Explorer
Ditching the FRAME but keeping the functionality
It is also worth mentioning that although we didn’t want to work with FRAME elements we wanted to keep the FRAME functionality as it is very convenient to keep the application header static.
The content area sizes and re-sizes itself dynamically relative to the height of the browser window to ensure that the full height of the browser window is utilized. This is best illustrated by viewing the layout in the 3 different resolutions in the previous section. In all 3 images, we see the content area dynamically sized relative to the browser window and never see the vertical scroll bar for the browser window, which allows the user to scroll through a form or splash menu but always keep the application header in view.
Frame action minus the FRAME.
Self Service 2.0 Walk Through
Technical Features
Browser Independent with compliance testing done on Mozilla Fire Fox 2, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, and Apple Safari
Follows W3C standards
Implements WEB 2.0 features
Highly interactive UI (User Interface) leveraging AJAX throughout application
Frameless architecture
Minimal usage of HTML Tables allowing for style to be separated from content
Application Style Sheets and Java Scripts have been completely re-organized into smaller specialized files for each different UI component
Conversion of JSP’s into Java Servlets to leverage java application architecture
Application
Vertical will snap to the bottom of the browser window
Side menu has been moved to conserve horizontal space
Form Specific Actions (Save, Revert, Print) have been removed from top action bar
Role Bar now takes up less space
Clicking on Role Bar will take you back to the splash screen for that role
Clicking on Logo (top left) will take you back to the splash screen
Role Bar
Hover on Role Bar brings up vertical drop down
Cursor Hand indicates that selection will change current role
Shows list of all available business roles. No Limit.
Role descriptions makes selecting role intuitive
Side Menu
Dims and disables background when menu is visible
No limit to the amount of items the menu can hold (previous SS world had height and width restrictions)
Takes up very little space and is always visible
Cursor switches to hand to indicate that items can be selected
Splash
Staggered Splash Form loading – Ex. Pages loads immediately content loads as it is ready
Improved Styling
Rolling mouse over functions shows form name in Status Bar – good for AS, PS
Stored preferences for Splash Menu Nodes Visibility by Self Service person
(Identity,Candidate)
Better usage of loading animation
Switching Roles
Calling a form now uses animation
Loading Splash content
Clicking on Actions
Dialog loading
Clicking from Tab to Tab
Find Area
Searches are now dynamic (no more clicking on search button)
Clear restore full list
Find list is updated without refreshing entire screen content
Fonts
Form fonts are set to 10 pixels (old SS was 11 pixels)
Tahoma (old SS was 11 pixels Arial)
Tahoma is a narrower font (old SS was Arial)
Smaller narrower fonts translates to more screen content, especially at 800 by 600
Dialogs
Completely revamped to eliminate screen flashing
Background dims to draw attention to dialog
Layers LOV’s and Calendars more smoothly
Drag-able
LOV’s
Searches reduce list dynamically
Completely revamped to eliminate screen flashing
Tabs
Improved UI
Dynamic Loading