Can you place a Slide Control inside of a Slide Panel? Maybe aka: Nested Slide Controls?

[dmontano]

I have done my best to search for a definitive answer, but I just can't find one.

My Situation:

I have many types of ITEMs that have very different attributes that describe each ITEM. For example:

• A "wheel" ITEM has attributes such as: Wheel Diameter; Bore Size; Lug Count; Offset Size; etc.
• A "paper" ITEM has attributes such as: Grain Direction; Material Thickness; Opacity; Recycled Content Percentage; etc.

In other words, the attributes needed to describe different types of ITEMs vary considerably. 

 My Current Direction:

• I have one table called ITEM that will contain all attributes needed to fully describe each ITEM - of any ITEM TYPE.
• I have a table called ITEM TYPE that will classify ITEM: WHEEL, PAPER, etc.
• I have one layout that will display all ITEMs for all ITEM TYPEs.
• I will place all ITEM attribute fields on the ITEM layout.
• I need a layout mechanism that allows me to place only the relevant fields for an ITEM TYPE in order to present the User the relevant fields only.
• I need to conditionally hide the fields that are not relevant to a particular ITEM based on ITEM TYPE.

My Question:

• Can I place a Slide Control inside of a Slide Panel of another Slide Control?
• If this is possible, is this ill-advised? If so, why?

My Assumptions:

• If I name each Slide Panel object uniquely, I should be able to target the interface navigation as needed.
• Each Slide Panel has the ability to have a unique hide condition applied to it so I can control its visibility.

My Options

I could build separate ITEM layouts for each ITEM TYPE. (I really don't like the thought of the overhead and prefer to keep it coupled to one layout)

 

My Screenshot

• I quickly added a Slide Control with 3 Slide Panels on my layout pasteboard, then added another Slide Control into one of the Slide Panels (nesting, if you will) and it appears to function. I have not named slide panels or scripts to test further because I thought I's ask here if I am going down a bad path.

Any input is appreciated, thanks.

 

[comment]

7 minutes ago, dmontano said:

Can I place a Slide Control inside of a Slide Panel of another Slide Control?

Yes.

 

7 minutes ago, dmontano said:

is this ill-advised?

Hard to tell. I don't really understand what kind of display are you trying to build and how nesting slide controls would be instrumental to that goal.

I believe the crucial question here is whether the user needs to see only a single item at a time (form view) or several items at once (list/table view) and if the latter, can they be of different types.

 

17 minutes ago, dmontano said:

I have one table called ITEM that will contain all attributes needed to fully describe each ITEM - of any ITEM TYPE.

I wonder if the EAV data model would not be better suited here.

 

[dmontano]

1 hour ago, comment said:

I believe the crucial question here is whether the user needs to see only a single item at a time (form view) or several items at once (list/table view) and if the latter, can they be of different types.

First off: thank you Comment for your comments - I always have appreciated them.

To reply to the quoted section above...

User will see this in FORM view. A portal to the right will list all product in table for a User to select and bring into focus on the FORM view. So, in essence, this is the view that needs to provide all details of an ITEM.

 

1 hour ago, comment said:

I wonder if the EAV data model would not be better suited here.

The reality of my need is I receive spreadsheets from many source of their "ITEMs" that I need to be able to pull into my ITEM table. This data is not "normalized" and I find it challenging for me to have to deal with importing a "denormalized" spreadsheet into my database if my database was "normalized". Please understand I may not be speaking accurately in what I mean - I struggle with this.

[comment]

5 hours ago, dmontano said:

User will see this in FORM view.

That makes things much easier. So if you are using the "wide table" data model, and don't want to use a dedicated layout for each type, a slide control object should serve well the purpose of showing the relevant fields for the currently viewed object's type.

I still don't see why nesting slide objects would be required. Or hiding a slide panel.

 

6 hours ago, dmontano said:

I receive spreadsheets from many source of their "ITEMs" that I need to be able to pull into my ITEM table.

I am not sure I understand this limitation. I think your data structure should be determined by what your solution needs to do, not by the format/s of the input data.

One of the advantages of the EAV data model is that you can add types  purely at the data level, without having to define more fields and do more layout work.

 

[dmontano]

12 hours ago, comment said:

still don't see why nesting slide objects would be required. Or hiding a slide panel.

To be honest, I don't either right now. My initial thoughts were: with many different "attribute sets" (one set per significant different ITEM TYPEs) needed - how will I separate these field sets?

I have been working on this and it's a bit challenging to have a Slide Control on top of other Slide Controls with different hide conditions. Using object panel to temporarily hide seems to be what best eases this challenge.

Another challenge is real estate. I sometimes wish there was a layout object feature that would allow us to collapse for example, a Tab Control "down" when not needed in primary view of FORM view. Or to the left, right, up, etc.

I'm contemplating if the popover may be an object I could consider. Problem is I have the majority of objects in simple long-standing types like fields, portals, tab control.

My journey continues, lol.

Thank you again for your time.

[comment]

28 minutes ago, dmontano said:

with many different "attribute sets" (one set per significant different ITEM TYPEs) needed - how will I separate these field sets?

Quite simply: use a slide control object with a panel for each item type. In each panel, place the fields (and other layout objects) relevant to that panel's type. Use an OnRecordLoad script trigger to select which panel to show and hide the navigation dots to prevent users from overriding this choice.

(This is assuming you are are keeping the "wide table" data model. With the EAV model, the attributes would be shown in a portal.)

 

35 minutes ago, dmontano said:

I sometimes wish there was a layout object feature that would allow us to collapse for example, a Tab Control "down" when not needed in primary view of FORM view.

I am afraid that makes very little sense to me. Collapsing or hiding a tab control object would reveal the real estate behind it. A much simpler way to use that real estate is to add another panel to the tab control.

As you notice, a popover is another tool you can use to bring things in and out of view. But there is no value in using it in conjunction with a tab control.