DISPLAY FORMAT TEMPLATE SYSTEM SPECS Display format (aka name display format) templates are used to customize what is shown in minimal display areas in order for a user to identify a record uniquely for selection purposes. Raven will rely much more heavily on this for several reasons so it needs to be a solid integral part of Raven CASES REQUIREMENTS Client - Main grid lists will be very narrow and in many (if not all) cases show only a single column - Selection drop down boxes in forms for selecting other objects - Template editor under global settings for all main list objects Server - List of templates with their column selections - For client editor - For server to process what the query and send for lists - List of fields available for templates for client and server validation etc - Caching likely useful as server will need to deal with templates constantly as users fetch almost any list or combo box source etc - Has to be very peformant as it will be doing this a lot - SERVER handles composing the list object name display, NOT the client - This saves bandwidth - Incurrs more computing ops at the server but bandwidth is more expensive than server power all around - Clients could be shitty and slow, this elminates that prospect - Easier to code in c# than in javascript! ;) Back AND front end - Need to handle changes in fields gracefully i.e. a new field added in an update, a field removed in an update cleans out the template when detected etc - Should send the customized templated display name field to the reports as well as all the regular including name fields - This is because users will likely want that for many reports - Kind of a calculated field - Default templates come with Raven, user can customize further