tab panels within tab panels

[msuhr]

I am trying to put a child tab panel inside one of the panels of a parent tab panel (embedded tab panels?). I have one parent tab panel and on several of the tabs need to put additional tab panels. A thread in the forum says to add a simple container to the desired parent tab and then place the additional child tab panels in the simple container and this works when running the actual program. My problem is the editing. The simple container and the child tab panel "bleeds" thru to the other panels on the parent. that is the simple container and its contents are visible in the other tabs of the parent, even though grayed out, not only is the simple container and its contents visible, I can change anything in the simple container from the other tabs. The overlap of the simple container makes editing difficult and being able to move and/or delete the contents of the simple container in a tab other than the one is should be in makes it harder still. Is there a fix for the bleed thru of the simple container to the other tabs or am I just doing it wrong? I am at version 4.8.4

[Scott Klement]

Hmm... did this just start happening when you updated to 4.8.4? Or has it always been this way? (I'm guessing that it has always been this way -- but wanted to make sure.)

This is probably a bug in Profound UI.

[msuhr]

I honestly cant say as we have been on v4.8.4 for a while now but this is the first time I have tried this technique. I have tried in several different browsers, IE, Chrome, and Mozilla and get the same result in each. I also tried to add a 2nd simple container to an 'empty' tab and the new container got added to the existing one even though I was in a empty tab.

[Scott Klement]

Yep... This doesn't look like a browser compatibility issue... this looks like a bug in Profound UI.

You see, normally (i.e. outside of a tab panel) the visual designer shows hidden elements as "grayed out". This is done to make it easier to work on... if the designer complete hid elements when you set their visibility to "hidden", then you wouldn't be able to work on them because they wouldn't be there to click on. So the designer doesn't really "hide" them, it just grays them out. (At runtime, however, they are actually hidden.)

The way the tab panel works, under the covers, is it maintains a list of all of the elements you've dropped into each tab. When you switch tabs, it sets the visibility of the items on the current tab to "visible", and the elemnts on all of the other tabs to "hidden". That's just how Profound UI implements tab panels.

What's supposed to happen is the designer is supposed to distinguish between things hidden for the tab panel (in which case they're completely hidden) or hidden by design by the programmer (in which case they should be grayed out.)

But, for some reason, it looks like the simple container is never hidden fully, even from the tab panel. So, that's a bug.

So I'll set up a bug report for you and I will e-mail you the details so you can track it.

[msuhr]

Thank you sir.

[Scott Klement]

It looks like this was already fixed on our development box. The fix will be included in the next release of Profound UI, which should be released soon.

[msuhr]

Thanks for the update Scott. I am guessing that release would be 5.0 and that you dont have a firm ETA. I have a work around that will get us past our current road block but we are ready for 5.0 to make an appearance.

[Scott Klement]

I actually think that we'll be putting out another release prior to 5.0.... it's been far too long since we've put out a new release, and we need to get something out soon, I think... if for no other reason then to get out all of the bug fixes we need. I would expect to see a new 4.x.x release next week, or maybe even this week.

[Scott Klement]

Version 4.8.5 is now available for download, and contains the fix for this issue.

Good luck!

[msuhr]

Thanks Scott! I just finished installing v4.8.5 and am testing an application now. Next up tab panels!