Posted by Vince Morgan on 04/27/07 05:50

"Gordon Burditt" <gordonb.8k34d@burditt.org> wrote in message
news:13330ffoq4m7b74@corp.supernews.com...
> >I'm working on redesigning an ecommerce site written by someone else in
the
> >near future.
> >Currently a user can choose a product group and select items from a
returned
> >list. I noticed that on many of these groups the number of items to
choose
> >from topped out at 200, when in fact the actual number of those items
could
> >be as many as 5000.
>
> At some point user interface considerations can't be papered over with
> hardware improvements. Even if you have a large monitor, you shouldn't
> try to put 5000 items in a list box. Break them up into subcategories.

My question was badly formed.
I think 200 in the list is certainly adequate, it's that i _only_ 200 are
being selected from the entire recordset;
It would be preferable to be able to click say [Next 200], and alow viewing
25 at a time. And that's where my head starts to spin.
I can't imagine putting 5000 records into the $_SESSION as an array and then
selecting 200 at a time, it seems like a huge amount of data.
But then again, it may not be?

> I am reminded of an argument I had once with someone who wanted to
> use a mouse for everything and saw no use for a keyboard. It's
> fine to select a name and phone number from a personal address book.
> It is NOT fine to use the same technique for the World Phone Book,
> particularly if you think you can fit it all on the screen at once.
> I asked this guy to describe how he'd actually scale his design,
> with the proviso that he was limited in the size of the monitor he
> could use to THAT (I point outside to a nearby 25-story building
> occupying most of a city block, completely covered in glass, which
> I presumed could have monitors behind it) and make the monitor
> resolution as much as he wanted (e.g. a trillion pixels per square
> inch) but that he was not allowed to alter the resolution of human
> vision.
>
I would have wondered at his sanity ;)
Thank's
Vince

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