Media Quality Tests
15. Programming decisions
Review Pages
2. View Page Description
3. Submission of Tests
4. Submit Tests detailled description
5. List of Tests conducted by a particular reader
6. Empty
7. An example of viewing a test
8. An example of submitting a test
9. Security constraints
10. Csv file format
11. Some suggestions for the proper submission
12. Measuring the quality of recorded media
13. Frequently Asked Questions
14. Glossary of Terms
15. Programming decisions
16. APPENDIX 1. UmDoctor Pro II
17. APPENDIX 2. KProbe
18. APPENDIX 3. CdSpeed
19. APPENDIX 4. PlexTools Professional
Programming decisions for developing the Media Quality Tests
During the preparation of this section of our site, we understood that the user interface would play a significant role in the satisfaction of our readers while they would be involved in querying our database for quality tests.
From many respects pure html is inadequate in handling highly interactive scenarios as that we felt our solution represented . We had thus have to make some decisions in advance.
Instead of having each user press a dozen of buttons on scattered pages for finding the tests he wanted to find, we felt we had to offer him a seemingly simple approach of the feel and taste of an interactive (windows) program.
All options should be available under a single page. All interactions with the page controls (buttons, list-boxes, etc) should not distract the user attention by imposing postbacks to the server, at least not in a viewable way:) Taking a look at both the initial and final state of the main Test Page (see below), shows that we have succeeded into devising the illusion that the user is actually working on a "pure" (windows) program. In fact, any such program, in reality, would be as fast as our Dhtml code, not a single second faster!
In the above picture (showing the selections leading to a particular test) we see that the user interface has been kept constant throughout all user interactions with the page.
In order to achieve all this, we had to make some browser compatibility sacrifices. We could achieve the same result by either using iframes or webservices/remote-scripting. In all cases the use of Dhtml is essential for a technically acceptable outcome. In the latter case we would have to restrict our audience to users of Internet Explorer 5.5 or later. In the former case, in general any series 4 or newer browser might be able to handle our page.
We have not tested (yet) thoroughly the compatibility of our solution with the latest Netscape/Mozilla and Opera browsers versions. This would be beyond our site’s capabilities (both in terms of personnel and necessary work-hours), for the time being. We will try to improve, in the future, compatibility with these browsers, in case the lack of standards implementation weights more towards our side.
(Given the record of thin standard Dhtml implementation in both the cases of these 2 genres of browsers (NS and Opera), however, might limit our efforts for reaching a wider browser use.)
View Page criticism
We have been hearing some persons arguing about the method we chose for displaying of the tests. We accept and understand each and every one of them. Please before sending us you opinion, try to think of a different way of arranging the user interface that takes into account all aspects of the needs the View Page has to serve. We expect this way you own opinion will come closest to the one we finally adopted. If, however, this is not the case, we are glad to hear it by sending an e-mail to us here with the appropriate subject.
Review Pages
2. View Page Description
3. Submission of Tests
4. Submit Tests detailled description
5. List of Tests conducted by a particular reader
6. Empty
7. An example of viewing a test
8. An example of submitting a test
9. Security constraints
10. Csv file format
11. Some suggestions for the proper submission
12. Measuring the quality of recorded media
13. Frequently Asked Questions
14. Glossary of Terms
15. Programming decisions
16. APPENDIX 1. UmDoctor Pro II
17. APPENDIX 2. KProbe
18. APPENDIX 3. CdSpeed
19. APPENDIX 4. PlexTools Professional