Hierarchy: parents and children

Hierarchy is simply a way of organizing a list of things from top to bottom.

Why Is Hierarchy Important?

Applications can be built with dozens of layers, often stacked on top of each other. If these are laid out in an unorganized fashion, making changes and identifying problems is a nightmare! When adding parts to your app in Appeggio, you first select where you want your part to go before you choose your part. Ensuring you have selected the right section means you end up with the design you envisioned every time.

Hierarchy in Appeggio

The hierarchy in Appeggio is quite simple. We have parents and children. If a part is contained within a part, it is the child. The part that it is contained in is the parent. A part can have many children but only one parent.

So what if we have more than two layers? The process repeats itself, and a part can act as both a parent to something and a child to something else. Let's take a look:

The Parent and Child Relationship of Parts

In the example above, we have a column containing a card. That card contains a title, subtitle and button. The card is the parent to the title, subtitle and button. The card is the child of the column it is housed within.

How Do You Toggle Between the Different Parts?

You'll know which part of the hierarchy you are in because it will be outlined in orange.

Your solid orange container is the section that is currently selected, while the dotted one is the one that is being hovered over. This will help you keep track of what it is that you are editing.

Toggling between the parts couldn't be easier. You can switch to the parent (left) and child (right) with a single click. Just look for these icons:

Toggling Between Parts