Extend custom_display_format functionality to get Excel like field display/edit possibilities

Related products: Software Factory Universal GUI

The SF and data domains offer little possibilities to control the presentation of numbers. I thought the custom_display_format extenders would be the solution but I found some shortcomings that make them less useable in practice. I discussed this with Thinkwise people: The current behaviour is as intended but they think the following would be a good improvement.

Simple example for a currency datatype NUMERIC(18,3) where users normally want to see only 2 decimals but the extra decimal is needed for calculation accuracy. By using an extender with "€ 0.00" format for the domain you get the following behaviour

Positive:

  • Display with 2 decimals is correct and third decimal is used for rounding up/down correctly
  • An entered number with 3 decimals is correctly stored in the underlying table

Negative:

  • When EDITING data there is no way to see the third stored decimal
  • When EDITING it is not possible to edit the existing number; you have to clear the field and reenter the complete number

The behaviour is the same in grid and form screens.

 

We would expect behaviour like e.g. Excel:

  • Display data using the Extender. They are called custom_display_format for a reason I think.
  • Possibility to edit the exact stored data

Without this behaviour the introduction of the extender seems of little use; the same could be achieved using an expressions field. But a task would be required to edit data and this is what we want to prevent.

An extra improvement would be if the scope of the extender could be specified on a lower level than a domain. Then you would get the possibility to present and edit the same table field in multiple ways; the exact data for the finance department and in another screen rounded numbers for sales but still the possibility to edit the exact number.

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Great idea, this would solve a lot of problems for us 😀