The New Mobile Site

Surprisingly JK and I found that getting the hang of the JSP was not as hard as we anticipated. We do have to follow a lot of trails through the trunk, but these are not that hard to pin down. Since my last post we have almost entirely completed the Patient Search page for the mobile site. This is a huge milestone. We are now left with trying to figure out how to get the findPatient div to resize when a search is in progress. What we have done:

• Shrunk page elements to be suitable for mobile environment
• Brought language bar up to rest immediately under the page info (fixing the display problem on the iPhone)
• Shortened the user login bar
• Shortened the search field
• Eliminated unnecessary whitespace (breaks, etc.)
• Coded the JavaScript to scroll the findPatient and createPatient fields
• Made small formatting tweaks to make things cleaner overall

Now as we approach the end of the semester we hope to get the patientSearch page done, at least, so that we have something concrete to show in our final presentation. Regardless of what we get done before then, we will be continuing into the summer. Hopefully we will soon begin on the patient summary page.

What Was Our Project Scope Again?

Recently JK and I hit a roadblock that we simply cannot walk around. The spacing problem that I showed in the last post could only be fixed one way: turning the white link list (userBar) into a drop down menu in the CSS. Unfortunately, the only way this can be done is with an unordered list. "Well, that's perfect!" I thought, "The blue link list (navList) was an unordered list, so surely userBar would be as well." Wrong! userBar turned out to be a series of spans. Yuck! So we decided that despite our attempts to do a purely CSS operation, we were going to have to mess with the HTML. Being a "skilled" web designer (meaning an undergrad who had taken an Internet Development course), I wisely suggested that we validate the HTML before we start editing, so we don't throw errors on top of errors. Heh, first mistake. It turned out that the page (yes, this is just the home page, not the entire site, which we must also work on), whose DOCTYPE header claimed to be XHTML 1.0 Transitional, had 73 errors and 1 warning! In our local copy of the HTML we managed to eventually boil this down to 3. Now, remember, this is just the home page. One of the remaining errors was an autocomplete attribute we didn't want to mess with (you know, the kind you put in forms that all the major web browsers understand but for some reason isn't standard even though there is no reasonable workaround?). The other two errors were tell-tale signs that the HTML had been generated on the server side. Not good! This means that now JK and I will have to dig down into the MVC that OpenMRS uses to manage their project and find out which piece exactly generates the HTML and we can go about changing it so that it generates it the way we need it to. Sound fun? JK isn't looking forward to it. Personally, I'm excited, but I must admit it is daunting.

So now our project has gone from "create the mobile stylesheet" to "digging down in the MVC to regenerate the HTML." Meanwhile, the rest of our class is laughing at us because we finally have to do some "real" coding.

You Can't Sing! Hackers, You Can't Sing!

The Free Software Song...great idea, but no one has performed it well yet. At least, not that I have found. Let's not even mention Stallman here.

Some Major Software Company's Worst Nightmare

Ok, so we just got done watching Revolution OS, and I have to say I think esr is now my role-model. Maybe that's a bit extreme...or is it? Despite the obviously biased nature of Revolution OS (mentioned by our professor ahead of time), I think the video elicited some great discussion on where open source is today and where it could be going. Personally, I think it is valuable practically, but I also think that the free software movement's views are good ideals to work toward. We need idealists pushing us in the right direction, even if their true vision would never be met. Thoughts?

Warning Radioactive Material!

Welcome to the Super Magnet Room! Despite the title of the blog and this post, this has nothing to do with super magnets or radioactive material--well, maybe just a tad. I'm a university student on a mission to contribute to the OpenMRS project. Each week I will be blogging a little bit about the progress of the ticket that I and my partner are working on, or things we have been discussing in class about Open Source in general (Free Software, if you prefer (I prefer)). We are looking into tackling the mobile style sheet for OpenMRS.

So, what do super magnets or radioactive material have to do with anything? Well, our classroom is in the basement of the science building--right next to the super magnet room and about 50 feet away from the radioactive material closet. If you were looking for a site about blowing stuff up or crazy science experiments, maybe this is not for you. Then again, you might see something you like here. On the other hand, if you're looking for a bunch of "scruffy hackers," you came to the right place.