Touch UI / Appearance

  Tab Bar

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Touch UI / AppearancePrint||
Tab Bar

Page of an application built with Touch UI represents an individual mini-app, also known as Single Page App or SPA. Shared navigation system of application links together multiple SPAs.

Developers can assign icons to individual pages to signify their purpose. Icons are displays at the bottom of the sidebar on the left side of the page and in the drop down menus at the top of the page.

Sidebar displays page icons when specified in apps created with Touch UI.   Page icons are visible in the dropdown navigation menus in apps created with Touch UI and Code On Time app generator.

The sidebar provides easy access to the first three or four pages with icons, which works great on larger screens. The sidebar is not visible on the smaller devices. Touch UI introduces a new method of providing quick access to important pages called Tab Bar.

Tab Bar is automatically displayed at the bottom of the screen whenever the sidebar is not visible

Tab Bar is displayed at the bottom of the screen if at least two icons are defined in the menu of the app created with Code On Time.

Tab Bar disappears as soon as the sidebar becomes visible, which may happen if device orientation has changed or when the app window is resized.

Tab Bar is hidden when the sidebar is visible to the user in apps based on Touch UI.

The width of tabs will automatically increase on large screens.

Tab Bar appears as soon as the sidebar stops being visible in the app based on Touch UI.

Tabs automatically expand and collapse. Some tabs may be shifted off-screen when the minimal tab width is reached. The invisible tabs are replaced with “More” button if there is not enough space to fit all of them at the bottom of the screen. Invisible tab icons are displayed when “More” button is activated on the Tab Bar.

'More' button is displayed when some of the tabs are not able to fit on screen in application based on Touch UI.  Invisible tab icons are displayed when 'More' button is activated on the Tab Bar in app created with Code On Time.

If you do prefer not to have the Tab Bar then turn if “off” by entering the following configuration property in ~/touch-settings.json file:

{
  "ui": {
    "menu": {
      "tabbar": false
    }
  }
}

If you love the Tab Bar, then consider enabling this feature on any screen size by settings ui.menu.tabbar to true.

{
  "ui": {
    "menu": {
      "tabbar": true
    }
  }
}

This setting will remove icons from the sidebar and transfer them to the permanently visible Tab Bar at the bottom of the screen.

Set 'ui.menu.tabbar' property in touch-settings.json to 'true' to permanently enable the Tab Bar in app created with Code On Time.

Page icons will be visible on a screen of any size.

Tab Bar displays icons of important pages in app based on Touch UI.

Notifications displayed in the app will move the Tab Bar and the “promo” button upwards.

Notifications displayed in the app will move the Tab Bar and the “promo” button upwards in apps based on Touch UI, created with Code On Time.

The tab bar will slide down to the bottom of the screen when the notification is dismissed.