Appboard/old/boards

Boards are an integral part of the AppBoard system. Boards contain the widgets that display useful information to the end user. Every board will be part of a stack, which is a collection of one or more boards. For example, one board might contain widgets that detail all of the Airports in the US and another Board might have widgets that show only the details of a single Airport. These boards could then be grouped together under a stack called "Airports".

Boards are laid out and displayed as frames under a selected stack (tab) in the Appboard Builder interface.

Managing Boards

Use these instructions to view a list of all Boards that are available in a stack.

1. Click "Stacks & Boards" in the left side tool palette.
2. Click on an arrow next to any stack (row) in the stack list data grid.
3. A list of Boards is displayed. The Parent Board is not removable. Child Boards can be deleted by simply selecting them and clicking the "Delete Board" button at the bottom of the screen.

Creating a Board

When a stack is created, a Parent Board is automatically created for that stack, which cannot be deleted.

Use these instructions to create a new Child Board and add it to a Stack.

1. Click "Stacks & Boards" in the left side tool palette.
2. Click on a stack (row) in the stack listing data grid.
3. Click "Add Board" at the bottom of the page. Enter the following parameters for the Child Board:
   1. Title: Enter a Title for the Child Board that will identify it in the Stacks & Boards interface.
   2. Parent Board: Select any Board in the current stack. This is the Board that will be able to launch the Child Board.
   3. Context Data Type: Select the type of data that will associate the Child Board with the Parent Board.
   4. Context Label Field: Select the data field that will associate the Child Board with the Parent Board.
4. Click "Add Board" to create the Child Board.

Editing a Board

To edit the name of a Board:

1. Click "Stacks & Boards" in the left side tool palette.
2. Click on the arrow to the left of the stack (row) in the stack listing data grid for the Stack that contains the Board.
3. To edit the name of a Board, click the Board name in the data grid and enter the new name.

To edit the contents of a Board, add or remove Widgets to the Board:

1. A Widget only exists in the context of belonging to a Board. To create a new Widget, add the Widget to a Board:
   1. Click "Add Widget" in the left side tool palette.
   2. Enter the following parameters for the Widget:
      1. Name: Enter the name to be given to the new Widget.
      2. Widget Type: Select from the available list of Widget classes in the system.
      3. Board Name: Select the name of the Board to which the Widget will be added.
2. To remove a Widget from a Board:
   1. Display the Board in the main view of the "Widgets" page and click the "Delete" button on the bottom corner of the screen. This removes the Widget completely from the system.

Editing a Child Board

When a Board is a child of another Board, the Edit Board dialog allows for editing the context relationship between the Boards. Perform the following steps to modify the context relationship of a Child Board:

1. Click "Stacks & Boards" in the left side tool palette.
2. Click the arrow to expand the Parent Board and show the Child Board(s) beneath the parent.
3. Select the Child Board name and click Edit. The Edit Board dialog is displayed.
4. Edit the following items in the Edit Board dialog for the Child Board:
   • Title - Enter a new name for the Child Board, if desired.
   • Parent Board - Enter a different Parent Board, if moving the Child Board to a different Top-level Board.
   • Context Data Type - Check the box and select the name of a Data Collection that will be used to define an association between the Parent and Child Boards.
   • Context Label Field - Enter the name of the field that associated the data in the Parent Board to the data in the Child Board.

Board Layouts

There are two layouts to choose from when viewing your board: basic flow layout, and free flow layout. Here is some information on each.

Basic Flow Layout

Basic Flow Layout automatically scales widgets to ensuring content fill all available real estate on a board. Basic flow layout allows you to reposition widgets on a board, but you can not resize individual widgets.

Dragging Widgets in Basic Flow Layout Mode

You can rearrange widgets in Basic Flow Layout by simply dragging them to a new location. To do this, you left click and drag the title of the Widget, then drop the widget in a new location. There are three drop targets available:

1. Insert Target: This Target appears on the outside of widgets, or in the gap between widgets. Dropping a widget in this area will insert the new widget at that location and uniformly resize the other widgets in that row or column to make room for itself.
2. Split Target: This target appears inside of a widget, but only close to one of the edges. A "split" is similar to an insert, except that it only effects the target widget rather then the entire row or column.
3. Swap Target: This target appears over a title bar. A "swap" will change the positions of two widgets on the screen, without resizing any of the other content.

Free Flow Layout

Free Flow Layout gives you the ability to manually resize individual widgets, as well as drag them to new locations. Free Flow Layout is extremely flexible and allows you to create any layout you want. The only draw back to this mode is that alignment is also a manual operation.

Grid Snap

Fighting pixels to get widgets to line up is a big draw back to the Free Flow Layout mode. In order to make lining up widgets easier, Free Flow Layout comes with default Grid Snap of 10 pixels. This means that any time you resize or position a widget in Free Flow Layout mode it will shift a little in order to "snap" into position. This makes it much easier to line up widgets in on a board.

Removing a Board From a Stack

Use these instructions to remove a Board from a stack.

1. Click "Stacks & Boards" in the left side tool palette.
2. Click on the small arrow next to a stack (row) in the stack list data grid.
3. A list of Boards is displayed. Select the board and click the "Delete Board" button at the bottom of the screen to remove the board.

A Board exists only in the context of a specific Stack. If you remove a Board from a Stack, it is deleted completely from the system.

Viewing Boards

Use these instructions to view the content of Boards.

1. Select a Stack (tab) at the top of the Appboard Builder interface.
2. The Parent Board in the Stack is displayed
3. To view a Child Board, you must activate the Child Board by triggering an activity on the main display panel that will cause that Child Board to be displayed.