We are trying to evaluate extjs 4.x with Sencha Architect v2.x (UI designer) for our in-house sales tracking system. We are able to design and develop each/single modules like user manager, item manager etc as an application for using designer.
However, in order to make entire application work - driven by menu or dashboard and opening each module/application in separate tab, we are not able to make out the appropriate approach. Are we expected to design entire application in single design file which I believe is not practical as we would have more than 50 modules and many UIs.
We want to have something like we have dashboard with tree menu on left and tabs opening on right. On menu click we create a tab (if it does not already added) and open application that was originally designed with designer. E.g. if user clicks on “Sales order” we open sales order tab and so on.
We wanted make sure that we do use designer with model, store. I would appreciate suggestion on reusability of components like models, stores etc.
Ref: http://blog.dnet-ebusiness-suite.com/2012/04/sales-order-to-invoice-and-delivery.html
Architect 2 does not have a single design file. In fact each class has it's own file. You would not need to have separate projects. In fact both the metadata and the source Architect produces is very source control friendly.
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I am starting on a new project in WPF with MVVM. As per the Microsoft recommendations, it is advisable to use PRISM for various reasons.
Project requirements:
Dynamic menu with menubar based on roles assigned to user (fetched from database)
Toolbar for commonly used menu items and functionalities (again role based)
Status bar to display general broadcast messages and other information.
Single middle view to load screens as menu items are clicked.
Can someone guide me to a working sample (mainly dynamic menu and multiple views loading in the main region) in this regard.
If you're starting a new project, you might as well consider the latest version of Prism (v6). You can find the official samples for this version on GitHub, together with extensive documentation on how to use Prism with WPF. I suggest you go through these first.
As for the role based menu items, that's something too specific to find any samples on, but it basically comes down to correctly apply authorization and the necessary filtering of your menu items.
I work on site admin application and use marionette. And my problem is - how to organize views and applications for next requirements. Thanks for any help!
There are main menu on header - Users management, Evenets, General settings
And when user clicked to Users management On main region must shows additional menu with
Users Groups Permissions items and by default list of users (first tab is active).
Each item on click should shows coresponding view with list of entities.
And my question is how to organize applications, views and interaction between them?
Is sub menu part of users list view or it independent view? Which type of marionette view it must be?
Sounds a lot like typical web page where it would be much easier to just render HTML on the backend and not build a web-application.
As for structure, there is no one correct way, but I found these couple example projects as decent start to evaluate the best structure:
https://github.com/derickbailey/bbclonemail
https://github.com/Foxandxss/bbclonemail
https://github.com/brian-mann/sc02-loading-views
They all use slightly different structure and coupling. You have to decide yourself which one is best suited for your case.
In your case I guess main application with main region where you show different sub-applications based on user selection (tabs). For specific interaction patterns look at the examples. Try to decouple everything, don't pass around references instead emit and listen to events.
I've built and work with couple bigger web applications and I recommend to no go that path unless there is a reason to do that. Admin interface sounds like something you can "quickly" setup using existing frameworks like django-admin, flask-admin, Rails scaffolding, express-admin, well you get the idea. Then again I don't know anything about the project.
I am working on a winforms client server application that will load one of many forms that would be used to enter data or retrieve data or search for data. I want to put buttons on the left side of the screen to select which form is loaded on the right, and buttons at the top for the usual New, Open, delete etc.
I began working on this by making an MDI form that would popup a child window that allows to user to pick the application they want to use. Then when they select it, it would load the appropriate form on the right and update the text and functions of the buttons on the left. I was using panels to load the forms into for the button form (which I called the Navigator) and the application form. I had to use events to make changes to the different button forms when the form on the right was changed. A friend of mine said that I was probably going about this in the wrong way. He said there is probably a better design pattern or methodology or controls that already do that for me.
I dont know how to even search for something like this on the web.
Can someone give me some direction on this?
I can do the research if I am pointed in the right direction.
Maybe there is a control that already does all this?
Thank You.
We use a similar pattern. MDI parent with menus for objects and tasks. MDI Child forms (about 30) for each object/task. Left "nav" button in three groups: 1:1 (calling up l related objects), 1:N (display lists of related objects - inspections, equipment, etc.), N:N:X (other complex relationships or tasks). The body has a tab control to group data. At least one tab is a datagridview that is reused for the 1:N lists.
Left nav button sets are dependent on the object being managed. We add the buttons dynamically but in most case they are hard coded - we just don't use the toolbox to place the buttons on the child forms. Each button set is in a Panel - I would probably use a FlowPanel if I were to start over.
We build a "model" form on one of the more complex objects, built all the data binding logic, and then used that form as a basis for the other objects. We didn't use inheritance as supplied by Visual Studio/VB.Net.
We do our own control data "binding." We use ADO.Net and SQL Server. Our child forms only display one record and do not support the typical record navigation seen in the wizard generated forms - this works fine in our case as we navigate sideways through our data. e.g. Application, Authority to Construct, Permit - then inspections, renewals etc. all related to one Facility. (we're a regulator agency)
We use VB.Net as a lot of the business logic was developed in VB6. I'd still use VB.Net today vs C# - much easier to use for business logic and more maintainable IMO.
One issue to consider - some have out the long knives for WinForms (and VB.Net.) I can't see Microsoft depreciating WinForms but there are those advocating that. Many cannot appreciate the simplicity (albeit limited flexibility) of the WinForms that allows us to concentrate on the business being done. I keep looking at WPF but simply cannot see the usefulness of all the UI power it provides. WPF proponents will push MVVM but that is just more complexity that is not needed for small scale development or production (20 users with desktops o a LAN) environments. WPF does not lead itself to our sideways navigation.
I think the left toolbar for selecting the form is a good pattern, but make it collapsible (hide) so the user could use all the desktop space.
As for MDI personally I don't like it because fell a bit outdated and cluttered. But again look for a balance of form and function.
For the top toolbar I would make it part of each form so it would be easy to program the logic. It an unnecesary complication put them on the master form.
As a recomendation you could look, Designing Web Interfaces even it's more focussed to web could give some pointers in user interaction.
For more informacion search ui patterns, user interaction design.
I come from mainly a web development background (ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, XHTML, CSS etc) but have been tasked with creating/designing a Silverlight application. The application is utilising Bing Maps control for Silverlight, this will be contained in a user control and will be the 'main' screen in the system.
There will be numerous other user controls on the form that will be used to choose/filter/sort/order the data on the map. I think of it like Visual Studio: the Bing Maps will be like the code editor window and the other controls will be like Solutions Explorer, Find Results etc. (although a lot less of them!)
I have read up and I'm comfortable with the data side (RIA-Services) of the application. I've (kinda) got my head around databinding and using a view model to present data and keep the code behind file lite.
What I do need some help on is UI design/navigation framework, specifically 2 aspects:
How do I best implement a fluid design so that the various user controls which filter the map data can be resized/pinned/unpinned (for example, like the Solution Explorer in VS)? I made a test using a Grid with a GridSplitter control, is this the best way? Would it be best to create a Grid/Gridsplitter with Navigation Frames inside the grid to load the content?
Since I have multiple user controls that basically use the same set of data, should I set the dataContext at the highest possible level (e.g. if using a grid with multiple frames, at the Grid level?).
Any help, tips, links etc. will be very much appreciated!
Microsoft has created a great community site for helping people get started with both design and Silverlight here: http://www.microsoft.com/design/toolbox/
It may be far more than what you need for your current project, but it definitely will give you the training you need to master Design with Silverlight.
I've got lots of web experience but am a total novice when it comes to Windows Forms so this might be easy to answer:
I have Project1 which I've added a reusable control to which allows filtering and searching of data and presenting results.
I now want to use the same control in another Project.
When I open Project1 and select my form the reusable control appears on the toolbar so I can drag it onto any form in the project, but how do I get this to happen in my new Project?
You can add a reference to the (binary) control:
menu Project/Add Reference/tab Browse
Then it should turn up in the Toolbox (menu View/Toolbox).