| QuSheet Overview |
| Overview |
| At its heart QuSheet is all about communicating information as a list of paragraphs, with sub-paragraphs within those paragraphs, and sub-paragraphs within sub-paragraphs up to 20 levels deep. |
| QuSheet displays these paragraphs using three distinct output formats within the same HTML (i.e. browser style) document. Large-screen display (i.e. normal PC) presents sub-paragraphs as hidden clauses which a viewer can reveal or conceal with a mouse click, small-screen display (i.e. PDA/mobile phone) presents sub-paragraphs linked to and from their parent paragraphs with hyper-text links, and hard-copy display shows paragraphs and sub-paragraphs in a succession of summary/detail pages. |
| Since this type of information display is typical when communicating the results of calculations, QuSheet has an embedded calculation engine within it which displays its results and workings-out using paragraphs and sub-paragraphs as above. |
| At the top level a paragraph consists of two fields: a result and an explanation. Sub-paragraphs have three results fields instead of one. Although these fields have a default behaviour when QuSheet is making calculations they can be used to display anything you want, including dates, times, non-numeric data and so on, regardless of whether calculations are taking place or not. The important thing about results fields is that they line up with other results fields at the same level up and down the output file. This lining up happens not just at the field's starting points but also at various "hot-points" defined within them (such as the location of a post-fix unit like “meters”). This type of processing is necessary, particularly in the case of large-screen display, in order to make the final result pleasing to the eye. |
| QuSheet controls all aspects of output generation using Styles. Styles determine not just the visuals like background colour and bold/italic settings but also whether a field should appear on all different output types, prefix and/or postfix unit names, whether sub-paragraph expansion should be allowed or suppressed, how groups of sub-paragraphs should be sorted before display, numerous calculation based parameters such as decimal places and rounding, and so on. Styles can also be chained together in various ways to prevent repetition. |
| QuSheet’s input consists of headings and tables. Headings determine which paragraphs should appear within which others and what calculations should be made (if any). Tables define the data to use in calculations. |
| Headings and Tables combine using "Fields" and “Selectors” – a mechanism allowing the marrying up of headings and tables so that (a) headings can be repeated using different table entries, (b) tables can be used with different heading sets and (c) headings and tables can be combined to produce different output files. |
| A paragraph's explanation field can also be built using headings and tables. Doing so allows the explanation field to incorporate within it input data and calculated results as well as straight forward text. It also allows the explanation field to be built from phrases formatted according to different styles, allowing variation not just in the visuals but also, for example, in the type of display that a phrase should appear in. |
| QuSheet’s user interface, which runs on Microsoft Windows, allows Headings, Tables, Fields, Selectors and Styles to be entered via a simple system of tables and forms. This interface also boasts context-sensitive help, multiple undo/redo, rapid navigation between linked entities, copy and "intelligent" pasting from other windows applications, an XML data interface and user-preference settings such as colour-coding. |
| Please take a look at this presentation to see QuSheet in action, or follow the links at the top of this page to see other presentations and examples. |
| Overview » |
| « Overview |
| At its heart QuSheet is all about communicating information as a list of paragraphs, with sub-paragraphs within those paragraphs, and sub-paragraphs within sub-paragraphs up to 20 levels deep. |
| QuSheet displays these paragraphs using three distinct output formats within the same HTML (i.e. browser style) document. Large-screen display (i.e. normal PC) presents sub-paragraphs as hidden clauses which a viewer can reveal or conceal with a mouse click, small-screen display (i.e. PDA/mobile phone) presents sub-paragraphs linked to and from their parent paragraphs with hyper-text links, and hard-copy display shows paragraphs and sub-paragraphs in a succession of summary/detail pages. |
| Since this type of information display is typical when communicating the results of calculations, QuSheet has an embedded calculation engine within it which displays its results and workings-out using paragraphs and sub-paragraphs as above. |
| At the top level a paragraph consists of two fields: a result and an explanation. Sub-paragraphs have three results fields instead of one. Although these fields have a default behaviour when QuSheet is making calculations they can be used to display anything you want, including dates, times, non-numeric data and so on, regardless of whether calculations are taking place or not. The important thing about results fields is that they line up with other results fields at the same level up and down the output file. This lining up happens not just at the field's starting points but also at various "hot-points" defined within them (such as the location of a post-fix unit like “meters”). This type of processing is necessary, particularly in the case of large-screen display, in order to make the final result pleasing to the eye. |
| QuSheet controls all aspects of output generation using Styles. Styles determine not just the visuals like background colour and bold/italic settings but also whether a field should appear on all different output types, prefix and/or postfix unit names, whether sub-paragraph expansion should be allowed or suppressed, how groups of sub-paragraphs should be sorted before display, numerous calculation based parameters such as decimal places and rounding, and so on. Styles can also be chained together in various ways to prevent repetition. |
| QuSheet’s input consists of headings and tables. Headings determine which paragraphs should appear within which others and what calculations should be made (if any). Tables define the data to use in calculations. |
| Headings and Tables combine using "Fields" and “Selectors” – a mechanism allowing the marrying up of headings and tables so that (a) headings can be repeated using different table entries, (b) tables can be used with different heading sets and (c) headings and tables can be combined to produce different output files. |
| A paragraph's explanation field can also be built using headings and tables. Doing so allows the explanation field to incorporate within it input data and calculated results as well as straight forward text. It also allows the explanation field to be built from phrases formatted according to different styles, allowing variation not just in the visuals but also, for example, in the type of display that a phrase should appear in. |
| QuSheet’s user interface, which runs on Microsoft Windows, allows Headings, Tables, Fields, Selectors and Styles to be entered via a simple system of tables and forms. This interface also boasts context-sensitive help, multiple undo/redo, rapid navigation between linked entities, copy and "intelligent" pasting from other windows applications, an XML data interface and user-preference settings such as colour-coding. |
| Please take a look at this presentation to see QuSheet in action, or follow the links at the top of this page to see other presentations and examples. |
-> output produced by QuSheet, licenced to "Richard Develyn", 19 Oct 2009 130|1|24094