Question about the method of doing interfaces

[hackhack]

I wonder if someone could tell me the basic philosophy behind making several "screens" in an app.


For instance, i make the first default screen in the designer, that gets saved to a bal file and loaded in Activity_Create (lets call it main.bal)

Then assume I have a menu which opens a "settings" window - what is the right way to do that?

Do I load another bal file with the next layout, perhaps closing main.bal first?

Or does it all have to be in "main.bal" but setting visibility on and off on different items? (seems that would get confusing)

Also, if I wanted the app to look good on a phone and on a tablet - would I load different bal files depending on what hardware the app was running on?


Also, if I load a new bal file in the designer, it isn't always showing up in the emulator, is there a trick to get that to happen?

 

[Erel]

See the first link: Basic4android Search: multiple layouts

 

[hackhack]

See the first link: Basic4android Search: multiple layouts

Yeah, I saw that and it doesn't answer my question. I wasn't asking for source examples - I wondered if someone would tell me in a few words what the design philosophy is - ie, a quick summation of the general method.

 

[nfordbscndrd]

I wonder if someone could tell me the basic philosophy behind making several "screens" in an app.

For instance, i make the first default screen in the designer, that gets saved to a bal file and loaded in Activity_Create (lets call it main.bal)

Then assume I have a menu which opens a "settings" window - what is the right way to do that?

Do I load another bal file with the next layout, perhaps closing main.bal first?

Or does it all have to be in "main.bal" but setting visibility on and off on different items? (seems that would get confusing)

I'm working on an app which has options laid out on a panel and an "Options" button on the main layout:

The button makes it visible or not visible, so it shouldn't be confusing. What may be more confusing is that the panel blocks a lot of the main layout in Designer, but I just change the location of the panel to put it offscreen, then if I need to edit it, I change it back to an onscreen location (e.g.: 1,1).

It may be more efficient or technically correct to use a different .bal file for options (I'm not advanced enough to know), but keeping it all in the same layout seemed easier to me.

Also, if I wanted the app to look good on a phone and on a tablet - would I load different bal files depending on what hardware the app was running on?

Unless the app has so few Views on it that spacing doesn't matter, then you should do a different layout for devices of different sizes and resolutions. See this page.

 

[hackhack]

Thanks nfordbscndrd

That only only looks nice but sounds good