[Challenge] How Many Tab Panels? (Answer)

This is in reference to this post.

According to an online "personality" test, it's Albus Dumbledore to you....

I did this layout scheme a while back now. Figured I would try and copy the FileMaker templates and it turned out to be rather easy. Shortly after, Bob came out with his tutorial on the subject (here). I should look at it sometime, probably some interesting differences.

A lot of guess work involved counting tab panels when some of them have the tabs hidden! Good job in covering all the possibilities. For the record, here's the answers:

1. Number of tab panels (answer: 5)

On the custom controller, the navigation window is a tab panel with one form. Besides taking care of solution navigation, you can see how many records are in each table at one glance. Also in the controller: the actions window is a tab panel with a form for each of the records in the navigation list, so count 8 tabs for it.

The main layout has three tab panels. From top to bottom each contains 3, 3, and 4 tabs. The notes field is just that—a field (but a portal would be a good addition here). The summary box is not a tab panel.

2. Layout description

The custom controller has two tab panels with tabs hidden. Simple enough.

The main part of the form has three tab panels with tabs hidden as well. Huh? The tabs you see are my own buttons that switch the tab index of the tab panels when clicked. They also switch their properties (background color and font) to indicate the active tab. Why would I want to use my own tabs? Because they look exactly the same on all platforms (with the exception of when you use the XP look and feel, don't EVER use that L&F).

The trickery is in the top tab panel of the main form. The first tab is a form view. The second and third tabs are a list and table view respectively. Both of these views use the whole form while the first tab uses only a fraction of the form for the viewing area.

There are several ways I could have done this. First option (a.k.a. the FileMaker way) would be to use three main forms and switch between them. However, this wouldn't be a tab panel then so that's not the way I did it :)

The second option would be to include the 2nd and 3rd tab panels in the form for the first tab of the top tab panel. I'm kind of ... "detailed" ... when it comes to lining everything up though and with this method I couldn't easily get all the lines of the tab panels to line up.

The third option is to resize the tab panel depending on which tab is showing. So when the 1st tab is showing, it's at normal size. When the 2nd and 3rd tabs are showing, the tab panel is resized to fit the whole form. The one trick with this is that this tab panel object needs to be the front-most object on the form. When resized, it then covers up all the objects below it. Easy and effective.

3. Number of FileMaker layouts.

Let's see, five tab panels total. Number of tabs for each are:

Navigation = 1
Actions = 8
Main::top right = 3
Main::middle = 3
Main:: bottom = 4

Multiply the number of tabs together (let me get my calculator out) and you get...288! That's right folks, 288 FileMaker layouts.

In contrast, ADD the number of tabs together to get the amount of Servoy forms (put my calculator away) and add one more for the parent form and one for the custom controller. It took 21 forms to get what you see in Servoy.

4. To change anything on the parent layout, you would need to change all 288 forms in FileMaker to match. In Servoy using tab panels, you change one form.

Concluding thoughts

This obviously would be an extreme example in the FileMaker world. No one in their right mind would do a layout like this. But in my experience it is not uncommon to see up to 50 layouts to manage tabs. Or have a navigation layout floating alongside the main application which is another whole different set of headaches to manage.

With Servoy, not only was this doable but quite easy. The fact that you can change the properties of objects at run-time let's me easily roll my own tabs and even resize a tab panel. There is a lot of information that you can easily navigate to from this "single" page.

Cheers,

David Workman