[thelist] GUI design in an already cramped space... help

[Rob Smith]

Hi list,

Although I cannot give a screenshot of my problem I can tell you about it.
This particular text field is in the middle of a bunch of others and was
designed to fit there. I've been tasked with adding the ability to enter
multiple fields of the same type per form submission. This can present a
data management nightmare if left untamed.

My original thought was to just indicate users enter their multiple field
information separated by commas and just extend the field size in the
database. That didn't fly very far. I was reminded to keep it simple. :-\

We really cannot, add more fields to the form because the number of entries
is unknown.

My next thought was to use iframes. for example (ascii art):

+---------------------------------------------+
|  (page)                                     |
|                                    ______   |
|          +-iframe--+    Some txt: [______]  |
| Name     |[___] [+]|    Another:  [______]  |
|          +---------+    Yet more: [______]  |
| field       [______]    Word:     [______]  |
:                                             :
.                            [preview]        .

The [+] is a button to add additional names. (Fill in name, click [+],
repeat), I'd store this information delimited by @@@@ or whatever in a
single field.

That's fine for adding. But I cannot forget about the "oops" factor. When
the user previews the page before actually submitting the form, I was
thinking something like:

+---------------------------------------------+
|  (preview page)                             |
|                                             |
|                         Some txt:   a value |
| Name     Name Ena [-]   Another:    b value |
|          Name Enb [-]   Yet more:   c value |
|          Name Enc [-]   Word:       d value |
|          Name End [-]                       |
|          Name Ene [-]                       |
| field         blah b.                       |
:                                             :
.                              [save]         .

and so on and so forth. By clicking the [-] button, they would essentially
remove that entry from the @@@@ delimited list and refresh the page to show
the updated information.

Anybody have other suggestions?

Rob Smith