Best UI design principle for an app with several windows?

[Andreas_West]

@123500:@Michael Hußmann

A toolbar or a row of tabs, on the other hand, are for navigating between different views within a single window. Using these interface elements for switching between different windows would be seriously confusing. So again I wonder whether you really want to have several windows or whether switchable views within a single window would do the job just as well – in that case a toolbar or tabs would become an option again. Obviously it depends on whether you need several views to be visible at the same time; also when the views would be very different sizes it might be better to use different windows.

@Michael Hußmann and @Michel Bujardet , let me give some more detail to answer some of your valid points.

I have 12 different windows, these aren’t displayed at the same time, only 1 window is displayed. It should be in the most common screen size, which is currently 1366 x 768 according to the latest stats. The recommendation I’ve got was to look at PagePanel, Container Controls or actually use both of them together (see here: https://forum.xojo.com/15067-how-to-create-the-general-preferences-window-of-mac-os-in-my-ap/

I haven’t made up my mind fully on the final design so I’m pondering with the idea of having a modal window that is used on several windows as a data input interface. So yes, there might be the possibility of having the need of two windows being open at the same time, a smaller second one is floating on top of the 1366 x 768 main window.

The navigation should be traversal, Michel, as there is no hierarchy for the users to follow. Hope this explains it better.

I’ve tried looking for an example project of PagePanel in the Xojo folder but unfortunately there isn’t any, the only one I could find was two examples for Container Controls which both didn’t work (ContainerControlExample never displayed anything else than the customer screen, no idea how I get to the two other screens - DownloadContainer opens a second window on top but that’s not really what I’m looking for). If I overlooked it I’d appreciate if you could point me to the right example.

[Michel_Bujardet]

[quote=123533:@Andreas West]@Michael Hußmann and @Michel Bujardet , let me give some more detail to answer some of your valid points.

I have 12 different windows, these aren’t displayed at the same time, only 1 window is displayed. It should be in the most common screen size, which is currently 1366 x 768 according to the latest stats. [/quote]

So we are talking about a one window sort of full screen (or close to it), with different content. Pagepanel is probably indeed one of the easiest way to go, since you can place whatever you want on each panel and simply switch in code like you flip pages. I am not aware of any example, but you may simply want to play with that control. It is really easy to work with.

I am not too fond of the ContainerControl for 12 different views. It will look like garble on the window in the IDE. It has one advantage, though : each ContainerControl is more like a window, as it has backdrop image and background color, and can have properties.

May I suggest you build a mockup of your app with these options and see how it feels ? It will also help you see how the app will work and eventual hurdles.

In a way, what you are describing is very much like Windows Metro apps : one screen, several views.