Versions Compared

Key

  • This line was added.
  • This line was removed.
  • Formatting was changed.

Combining multiple layers together can be a powerful way to display different sources of related content side-by-side. These are known as dashboards and can give an at-a-glance view of the status of a complex design, project or system.

Tutorial Videos

...

Defining Regions of the Canvas

...

The regions can be renamed to have more logical names depending on the immersive space e.g. north, south, east, west or left, front, right, back.

One of the regions in each layout can be designated as the default region. This is the region which new layers such as WebViews will appear when they are created. The default region is selected using the check-box labelled ‘Default’ just below the list of regions.

The Show Layout option will display the current layout in the Canvas preview (but not on the actual canvas) even when the Layouts dialog is closed.

Creating a Simple Dashboard

...

Press the Add Content button and select New > WebView. Repeat this 3 more times so that you have 4 WebViews.

For Layer1, set the name to News and one of the WebViews, set the URL to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news . In the Geometry tab, set the Aspect Ratio to ‘Container’ and Resize Mode to ‘Scale to fit h’. Set the Position Mode to ‘Lock to Region’ and set the Layout and Region to ‘Default Layout’ and ‘Region 1’. This will move the WebView to one of the preset regions and ensure it resizes to fill the space. Note that the layer name changes to match the name of the webpage, in this case it becomes 'Home - BBC News'.

...

Repeat the above settings for the other 3 layers using the following names, urls URLs and regions:

Weather, http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather, Region 2

Sport, http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport, Region 3

Technology, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology, Region 4

Once completed, save all the WebViews into a single session , called ‘News Dashboard’, and add to the Homescreen Sessions grid.

...

. The session will automatically appear in the Sessions grid on the Homescreen layer.

...

Next Section: Desktop UI - Controlling with a Keyboard and Mouse