New Layout Container Flyout Menu

[Greg_Oliven]

The new layout container provides a cool option for a menu that appears to pop out from the side. I first time I saw this was in a nice post @jochem_zw made on LinkedIn. Setting out to implement it, I put a button in the upper left corner of my container and had it increment the value assigned to a variable by 1 every time it's clicked:

Then in each of the charts I position underneath my button which I want to be part of my menu, I add this as the show condition:

So if the button's variable holds an odd number (which it will every other click), the menu shows. Click again, get an even number, and the menu disappears (the button itself has no show condition - it's always there). This works great, but it has one major liability and I am wondering if anyone has a suggestion for how to overcome it: it's not totally intuitive that to dismiss the menu you have to click the button again. Hitting Escape might feel more intuitive, or just clicking for focus elsewhere on the sheet. Any ideas on how to improve the implementation?

[jochem_zw]

Hi Greg, I don’t think there is a better solution for this. I would be nice if we had an on hover action, think this would make it a lot easier. About your vMenushow var why not make the action like this: if(vMenushow=1,0,1) so when it is 1 it shows the object. 

[rwunderlich · Accepted solution]

Hi Greg,

I usually address this by toggling the button label to inform the user.  BTW, a typical expression to toggle the variable state (your button action) would be:

=not vMenuShow

Then your button label expression becomes:

=if(vMenuShow, 'Hide Menu', 'Show Menu')

and your chart show condition is simply:

=vMenuShow

-Rob

[Greg_Oliven]

Thanks @jochem_zw, and thanks for posting your video which gave me the idea in the first place.

[Greg_Oliven]

Thanks @rwunderlich - much more elegant! And the idea to prompt the user via the button label is a good one, until we get some more web-like hover functionality for this.