Overview

When you are designing GUI screens for an application, it can be tricky to get the various components to appear exactly where you want them and move in response to the screen dimensions (desktop or mobile)screens we must consider how we want the page content to layout (Size and Position) but also how it should respond to its content and the screen it is being viewed on such as different sized monitors or mobile devices.

This page explains key concepts that you need to understand about how layout components can be positioned, sized and made to flowresponsive. 

The videos illustrate the concepts using a screen designed using the Theme 2 palette. If you have Theme 2 installed, you can use find the example dashboard in the repository. Navigate to Packages  → Theme2 - App Builder. Right-click T2 - Example Dashboard and select Display. 

In the properties tab for layout components there are several sections where you can configure position, size and flow. You can change the formatting of one component. If you need to make the same change to several components, use the Shared Styles.

• To configure the selected layout component only, use:
  • Style Settings: Auto Size, Direction and options to set scrollbars
  • Position Settings: fix the position, size and order of layout components
  • CSS Properties: configure less common CSS options, such as z-index.
• To configure multiple components in the same way, use Shared Styles →  Basic Settings These include settings for borders backgrounds and setting scrollbars. You can set more options by adding CSS Properties to shared styles.

See Also:

Position

Relative Positioning (Recommended)

Setting the properties on a parent area determines how child objects are positioned. such as in a row or column. The following video describe how to position your items:

Configuration Options

In the Styles tab for an area we can set the following styles to determine how items held within the area are laid out. PhixFlow uses CSS flexbox to achieve this, for more information on using flexbox visit: a guide to flexbox: 

1. Direction: the content will be laid out.
   1. Row puts components next to each other horizontally.
   2. Column puts components below each other vertically.
2. Wrap: allows components to start a new row or column when all space is filled or the screen size changes and components need to flow onto additional rows or columns, rather than disappearing off-screen.
3. Justify: determines where content will be placed for example, Flex Start - tells the first component to be in the top left.
4. Align: Alignment within the are, for example Stretch - tells each component to stretch to fit the available space. If all components fit on one row, then the components extend to fill the vertical space. If components have to wrap to form a second row, each row will occupy half the vertical space.

Image Added

Position can also be set in a shared style which allows you to combine positioning with conditional formatting rules. For example,

1. show or hide an area base on an on/off toggle.
2. Use the Internal Variable _client.mobile which returns true if the page is being viewed on a mobile device to amend how the screen looks.

Absolute or Fixed Position

Absolute positioning stipulates the a fixed position for an item. For example, to specify a component is always positioned in the top left corner of its parent area, set Position Settings → Top: 0 and Left: 0.
If you have a fixed layout component combined with components that have relative positioning, be aware that:

• the fixed component's size depends on its Position Settings → Width and Height. If no value is set it will have the default minimum size.

In Front or Behind Another Component

To change which component is in front/behind:

1. add a CSS Properties and set:
2. CSS Tag: z-index
3. Value: this is a whole number that determines how afar in front or behind an item will appear. For example items with a z-index of 20 will appear in fron f items with a value of 10. Consider using a larger increment, for example 10, as this provides the flexibility of adding more layers if they are needed.

Size

To control the size of layout components on a dashboard you can:

screen, again we can use Relative and Absolute sizing. THe following video helps illustrate how this works:

Relative Sizing

• Specify a size that varies as the screen resizes and always occupies the same proportion of space. 
  Set a percentage in Position Settings → Width and Height with value% e.g. 75%..
• Allow the layout component to automatically expand to fit the visible space on screen.
  Set Style Settings → Auto Size ticked.
  • If the layout component has siblings (components at the same level) they share the space in the flow direction equally.
    (To specify the flow direction, in the parent component set Style Settings  Settings → Direction.)
  • Child components may need more space than is available. For example, they may contain more fields than will fit on a screen. In this case the fields will extend outside the boundaries of the parent area.
• Control how much a layout component will expand compared to its siblings using a ratio. 
  Set a Style Settings → Grow Factor. For example, enter 2 to allow a component to take up twice the space as its siblings.
• Allow layout components to expand to the space they need, pushing the parent container to expand beyond the screen.
  Set Style Settings → Auto Size unticked.
  Remember to enable scroll bars on the parent container using Style Settings → Show Horizontal Scrollbar and Show Vertical Scrollbar.
• Allow a layout component to change it's size within a minimum and/or maximum range.
  In CSS Properties set CSS Tag: min-height or max-height and Value: valuepx e.g. 45px.

The following video shows how the different settings affect layout components in a dashboard.

Absolute

• Specify a fixed size in pixels.
  Set Position Settings → Width and Height with valuepx.

Position

Position settings can be:

Responsive Applications

Use Positions and Sizes to make your application respond to its content and /or the screen size it is being viewed on. When you combine Auto Size with Style Settings, you can achieve a responsive "flexbox" design very easily.

This is shown in this video:

Absolute or Fixed Position

To specify a component is always positioned in the top left corner of its parent area, set Position Settings → Top: 0 and Left: 0.
If you have a fixed layout component combined with components that have relative positioning, be aware that:

• the fixed component's size depends on its Position Settings → Width and Height. If no value is set it will have the default minimum size.
• other components will flow over the top of a fixed component.
  To change which component is in front/behind, add a CSS Properties and set:
  • CSS Tag:  z-index
  • Value to be greater than 1.
    2 is sufficient to bring a component to the front. However, if you use a larger increment, for example 10, you have the flexibility of adding more layers if they are needed.

Relative Position

By setting the properties on a parent area, you can determine how the child objects are positioned relative to each other.

To configure how components align, use Style Settings

• Direction:
  • Row puts components next to each other horizontally.
  • Column puts components below each other vertically.
• Wrap: Wrap - allows components to start a new row or column when all space is filled.  This also means when the screen size changes, the components will flow onto additional rows, rather than disappearing off-screen.

Additional style settings affect the child objects. The following settings provide very responsive design.

• Wrap: Wrap - allows components to start a new row or column when all space is filled.  This also means when the screen size changes, the components will flow onto additional rows, rather than disappearing off-screen.
• Justify: Flex Start - tells the first component to be in the top left
• Align: Stretch - tells each component to stretch to fit the available space. If all components fit on one row, then the components extend to fill the vertical space. If components have to wrap to form a second row, each row will occupy half the vertical space.

There is a Theme 2 demonstration dashboard that you can use to see how this works. In the repository Packages section navigate to Theme2 - App Builder. Right-click T2 - Example Dashboard. and select Display. When you resize the screen, you can see that the different areas move to remain visible in the smaller window.

Combining Settings for Responsive Applications

When you combine Auto Size with Style Settings, you can achieve a responsive "flexbox" design.

When you

When you set Auto Size and a Direction, PhixFlow provides additional Style Settings for Wrap, Justify and Align. The Align: Stretch option is useful to expand components into the available space perpendicular to the flow direction. For example, in a row, components stretch to fill the vertical space. In a column, they stretch to fill the horizontal space.

More Information

• Screen Styling
• Formatting Rule