Re: Query output is misleading due to grid cell size

On Thu, 2012-08-16 at 12:56 +1000, Evan Martin wrote:
> Running the latest trunk build (g7ac0c60)
>
> When pgAdmin displays the query output in a grid each column seems to be
> sized based on the header size and the value is truncated as needed.
> There is no indication that it's been truncated. This sometimes makes
> the result highly misleading and I've just spent 5-10 minutes scratching
> my head about why a function is returning such a strange result!
>
> Here's what the output looked like: http://i48.tinypic.com/5fkdmp.png
> ... but resizing the cell shows something very different:
> http://i47.tinypic.com/2ennsqv.png
>

This is part of a change in the new dev release. All numeric columns are
now aligned to the right (previous releases, 1.16 included, treated them
as strings, and though aligned on the left).

> I would suggest that pgAdmin:
>
> 1) Always truncate the end of the string, not the start

Well, strictly speaking, it isn't a string, but a numeric/float value.
But I agree, we should truncate at the end.

> 2) Show some indication that the string has been truncated, eg. append
> "..." or show some subtle overlay with a wavy line - as long as there's
> something.

+1

> 3) For numeric types make the column wide enough to always show at least
> the part before the decimal point (or, for integer types, the entire
> number).

Well, that part isn't that easy because, if you have many numeric/float
columns, and many rows, it could take a long time to compute the right
size for each column. I much prefer item 2, which should be sufficent
with item 1.

I added a ticket for items 1 and 2, so that we can work on it later.

--
Guillaume
http://blog.guillaume.lelarge.info
http://www.dalibo.com