Tangis Application Builder

The Tangis Application Builder was a tool for rapid development of content-based applications making use of the Tangis In-Motion UI.  Lisa served as design lead for the project and conducted several rounds of usability testing on it.

The following text was taken from the Application Builder Help files.

Designer

The Designer, located in the upper left quarter of the Application Builder user interface, contains a flowchart-like graphical representation of selected pages in an application. This representation contains three levels of pages:

• The current page of focus is in the center (focus page). To cause a page to become the focus page, double-click any page in the Designer, Explorer, or Storage Bin.
• If the page has predecessors, these pages are connected by flowchart lines that lead down to the focus page. In the Designer, predecessors are the top-level pages.
• If the page has successors, these pages are connected by flowchart lines that lead up to the focus page. In the Designer, successors are the bottom-level pages.

The Designer shows the application from the perspective of a single page: only the page itself and its immediate  predecessors and successors are visible. The Explorer, on the other hand, presents a bird’s eye view of the entire application. The Designer is useful for page naming, page ordering, and page-by-page navigation. The Explorer is better for viewing the overall structure of an application and for jumping between distant sections of the application.

The pages in the Designer can be copied, edited, cut, moved, deleted, and renamed.

Editor

The Editor, located in the upper right quarter of the Application Builder user interface, contains the Navigation tab and the Content tab. The Navigation tab is used to define the properties of the page currently selected in the Designer. The Content tab is used to add content to the pages in your application.

Explorer

The Explorer, located in the lower left quarter of the Application Builder user interface, provides a view of the application as a whole. The hierarchical tree in the Explorer displays each page in the sequence of the application and all of the pages that link to menu items on each page.

The Designer shows the application from the perspective of a single page: only the page itself and its immediate predecessors and successors are visible. The Explorer, on the other hand, presents a bird’s eye view of the entire application. The Designer is useful for page naming, page ordering, and page-by-page navigation. The Explorer is better for viewing the overall structure of an application and for jumping between distant sections of the application.

When you preview your application, you will view only pages that are included in the sequence of pages that is present in the Explorer view. Pages that are in the Storage Bin are not included in the sequence of pages in your application.

Storage Bin

The Storage Bin, located in the lower right quarter of the Application Builder user interface, contains pages that have been:

• Moved from the Designer or Explorer as the result of a direct storage action. 
• Moved from the Designer or Explorer as the result of a delete action that left orphan pages behind.
• Pasted from pages that were copied or cut in the Designer or Explorer. 
• Created in the Storage Bin.

Pages in the Storage Bin are arranged and displayed in a hierarchical manner like pages in the Explorer. When you preview your application, you will not see the pages that are in the Storage Bin. To see these pages, you need to move them to the sequence of pages in either the Designer or the Explorer.