Best practice for displaying multiple subpanels?

[JeffBuckles]

I have about 20 different subpanels to display controls for different functional groups.   What is considered the best way to represent these on the main front panel?  For example:

- tab control with a sub-panel on each tab?

- Single subpanel using Insert/Remove methods to display the selected subpanel

  (select visible panel with buttons or ring menu?)

- some other way?

Considering from both code development/maintenance point of view and user experience point of view, what do you consider the best way to implement this?

Thanks and Best Regards,

-- J.

Message Edited by JeffBuckles on 06-18-2009 01:45 PM

[iZACHdx]

Hello,

It is hard to determine what is best for your specific type of information. In the end, they all do the same thing, but what is the best for your users? What looks the best? Which provides the easiest accessibility? Which do you find to be most intuitite? There are instances where any number of these methods might work for a particular application and would not be as good in another one. This all depends on how you would like to present the information to the user and also the level of accessibility that you would like. If there was only one best way to do this, why even give options?

-Zach