Workbench Structure
This page describes the menu and panel structures of the workbench.
The main purpose of this page is to explain the structure, which fits into the SenseMaker® platform style (and will be font/colour compliant too, when css design complete). It will thus not be possible in principle to make major changes to this structure. But what we fit into it and how is up for discussion. This structure is implemented with the ShinyDashboardPlus package and it should be noted that all workbench design requests and builds have to fit within the structures made possible by this and other R Shiny extension packages. This includes build in pure JavaScript and HTML.
The workbench structure (it's menu styles, panel styles etc.) are basically given. This is our framework and is very similar to the SenseMaker® platform.
It includes a top menu (which is split between items from the left and items from the right), left side collapsable panel (containing only a single tab), a right side collapsable panel (that can contain multiple tabs).
The top of the left panel contains the Workbench Modules. Each module implements one or more tabs where each tab has its own menu options (currently on the left of the tab, but we might be placing this into the right panel)
Each model is a standalone set of usable features that together mean something specific to the user. For example a set of triad regression options, or plain descriptive data plots.
For now, the modules are built into the Workbench Core, but we intend to fully modularise them. This will enable third party development and plug and play deployments. See Module Development page for details.
Top Menu
The top menu items are fixed for a given module (and some items will be fixed for the whole workbench). This enables these options to be accessible regardless of which module tab is in focus.
The top menu is currently static, but will need to be dynamic as modules will need to build their own menu options in addition to the all modules options.
Left Panel
The left panel contains the module selection list. The user selects the module required by clicking on the module title in the panel. The panel facilities do enable multi-level panel options, thus a module selection could contain sub-modules (which are in fact the modules, but enables a way of classifying or grouping modules under common themse).
Currently the left panel includes the data filters - but this is not expected to stay here. Decisions need to be made about the filter placement, but keep in mind that we require filtering to be applicable to a whole workbench, a module, a module tab and an individual graph/output display. So flexibility required.
The module list is currently static but will need (once the modules are developed in a modular way) to be dynamically built.
The current filter list is dynamically built for each workbench displayed.
Module tabs
Each module contains at least one tab. This is where the main display area is contained.
To the left of each tab is an options panel containing options pertaining specifically to the selected tab. We plan to move this to the right panel. This enables the options to be selected in and collapsed out again. But also provides more screen-estate for the main tab display.
Right Panel
The right panel is currently not used, but see above - a plan to include module tab options in it. These will need to be dynamically loaded when they are built.