Application with many little apps design

[Foz]

I've got a new project and I'm taking this opportunity to finally make PureBasic pay for itself

The premise is simple: a company wants to do 10-15 things (individual apps, i.e. app for customers, suppliers, reports, stock, etc).

The thing is, each one you can look at as a mini app, with it's own set of menus and design, but the customer wants the One App to rule them all. Plus they are interrelated, so suppliers, stock and reports may be linked and called from each other.

So my question is this: what would be the best method of handling multiple "apps" in one app - and I mean from a gui design point of view.

Immediately, what comes to my mind, is the MDI for windows, and a mammoth menu bar at the top. I'll acknowledge that it does a lot of things right - contains mini apps for you, menus are structured, and should be fairly self explanatory. There is one big failing though - it's not cross platform, specifically with a Mac.

Although the company wants to start getting one or two macs, they have been holding back as their existing system is windows only based. And me and my big mouth said "yeah, mac's aren't a problem."

So the only thing I can think of for the moment is some sort of side bar menu and apps are launched in a container control that fills the rest of the window, and I take care of freeing gadgets when menu's get switched.

I'm still open to ideas though... anyone?

[IdeasVacuum]

....first thing that springs to mind is to avoid that cross-platform idea. If the company is already Windows Based, it's not just about their inventory of existing hardware and software (a considerable investment in most cases) but the knowledge of the staff - very costly to change platform and then have to learn how to use different software and indeed to migrate all of the legacy data. Just not practical, could only be considered if the Mac platform could really deliver something special that resulted in the business being more profitable. That's a possibility of course, but rare.

Perhaps the multi-apps do not have to be 'in' one app, just launched by a control-panel app. On Windows there are a variety of methods such that each app can 'stand-alone' (meaning that each member of staff only has the apps that their role requires, i.e. very few staff members need them all) yet share data. Not so different to how the Office suites do it.

[Zach]

I suppose if I were going to do it, I would go with an MDI app for Windows, and since you need a separate GUI for the Mac, make it open multiple windows, that kind of form the same layout on the screen..

That seems like the only real thing you can do... I don't know how Macs works, but if PB's GUI stuff like containers, or tabbed panels would work, you could build a tabbed application that has a master Tab panel, each tab switching to the view the individual programs are responsible for..

It's too bad ProGUI isn't cross-platform yet.. The PanelEX would probably work great for having a single window, but splitting the screen into sections, or switching Panel pages for different apps.

Or you could simply build the individual apps with their own GUI's as per usual, but restrict "The One App" to being a windows only deal.

Otherwise I would agree, you might want to explain to the company they may want to consider sticking with Windows, since they have already invested so much in it.

[skywalk]

Hi,
My vote is a master launcher app that can process the field and verify network, database, user(s), peripherals, etc.
That way you can concentrate on tight individual gui's for each micro app and deliver them as prioritized.

Cross platform concerns don't sound set in stone given their Mac hardware is non-existent.
I would lobby they hold off Mac and iPads until Windows8 tablets are out and 1/3rd the cost of Mac.
Hopefully PB apps can be made to work in their Metro scheme.
As I understand it, the screen is really only 1 app at a time, with any others suspended and NOT getting CPU time until opened.
So, your micro apps would need to call the master when done.

My opinion is Windows 8 tablets will be more amenable to corporate IT purchasing than adopting Macs and iPads.