HTML Tables Are for Tabular Data
The original Pi-Star (still) uses myriad HTML tables for layout (non-tabular)
data. That’s a Bad Thing™ And since my
W0CHP-PiStar-Dash software is a fork, it
inherited lots of that legacy garbage. However, I’ve begun the conversion from
HTML tables for layout, to proper HTML(5) and CSS.
This is a UI/UX project that will be completed in phases as I get to them.
What’s Already Complete
The first step, was addressing the Admin Page. Namely, the process/service status table. I had converted that to an HTML/CSS “grid” system. The “Admin Section” buttons were coded in HTML/CSS “FlexBox”, but I still had lots of work to do…
Over the past two days, I’ve been focused on the various status panes in the left-hand panel. This conversion was completed in two phases.
Every status panel was presented as HTML tables for layout (ugh). After lots of hand-coding, all status panels are now modern HTML and CSS.
As a bonus, the hardware information pane at the top (directly below the navigation menu), was also converted to modern HTML/CSS.
Lots To Do Yet
Lots of the other information, such as gateway and RF activity, merit using HTML tables (at least for now), because they display and present actual tabular data.
However, there are many more phases to work on over the next many months, Such as the configuration page (a huge and ugly beast), admin sections, etc. Many of those areas are HTML forms and accept user input; not appropriate to display or lay those out in HTML tables.
Patience, Child!
These changes must be completed by hand and tested thoroughly. So that’s why they are being performed in phases. It’s a shit-ton of work, but soon enough, we’ll have proper HTML/CSS layout and presentation across the dashboard.