Just put together a nice sketch with this zappy tool, very good work Petru!

Now only the master pages handling could be improved I think:

  1. the master page should be selectable right from the New>Screen wizard
  2. It should be possible to change properties of the master on the target screen without automatically changing the master itself: e.g. when I have defined a layout in the master which contains panels, it should be possible to adjust the panel title in the destination instance (normal page) This could be realized by allowing template markers in the master, like Title or similar.

Gregor,

Thanks for the feedback!

  1. I am not sure I get the point. Technically master screens are regular screens an there is no difference between the two. I could add a new "Master Screen" option but I am afraid that this could cause some confusion later.

  2. I see. This would work like a true inheritance where you can override things. I see how this could be useful but it's also very hard to do. The solution for now is to avoid putting elements that change in the master screen.

ad 1.: this would simply insert the selected (master) screen first, so I don't have to select it later. Helps when I know I am creating a common page for which already some master exists.

ad 2.: consider PowerPoint: you can insert page templates with placeholders for title and body text, but can later fill in the blanks. This is how I expected the master screens to work but was disappointed that they were simple screens. An easy way might be to leave the text blank and allow empty texts to be changed later.

Also, the user is transparently taken to the master screen when modifying a GUI element that was inserted from a master, which is very confusing since the user may not notice at first... (happened to me always at first, and I was wondering what was going on)

  1. I get it now.

  2. I am not a PowerPoint expert. When modifying the placeholder can you still change it in the master template and see the change propagated correctly?

ad 2.: yes the template just defines the layout, not the actual content, you can define text and image placeholders (and include fixed text and images, too if needed) and do the rest in the page instance. Very handy.

This would provide me with a quick and easy way to define layouts for, e.g., login, search and edit forms and do the customization in the actual pages later.