Tabs and the header button
In the portal: Settings, then Configurations, on the nav.tabs and home.action rows.
What it is
Two settings shape the app's frame rather than what is inside it.
nav.tabs is the bar along the bottom of the app: which tabs are there, in what
order, with what words and what icons.
home.action is the single button in the top right of the home screen, beside
the sync indicator. It is the one place a tenancy can put its own booking link,
phone number or web page in front of every participant on every visit.
Both are rows in Settings, then Configurations, and both are edited as text. Branding explains how that editor behaves and what happens to a value it cannot read.
The tab bar
What each tab opens, what happens to a participant when you hide the tab they are standing on, and why renaming a tab changes nothing behind it are all covered by Tabs. This section is the configuration side: where the setting lives, what shape its value takes, and how to change it without breaking the bar.
The value
nav.tabs is a list with one entry per tab, and the order of the list is the order
of the bar. A new tenancy starts with all five entries, all visible, in the order
home, explore, progress, chat, settings.
| Field | What it accepts | Default |
|---|---|---|
key | home, explore, progress, chat or settings | required |
visible | true or false | true |
label_override | text | none |
icon_override | an icon name | none |
Either spelling of the two override fields works. label_override and
labelOverride are read as the same field, and the same goes for icon_override and
iconOverride. The seeded value uses the underscore form, so that is the form you
will find already in the box.
Editing it safely
The editor holds the whole list, so whatever you save replaces every entry. Copy the old value out first, change one thing, then look at a phone.
Check the spelling of every key. A key the bar does not recognise is left out,
so a typed progres looks exactly like a hidden tab. When a tab is missing, read its
key first.
Leave at least one tab visible. Hide all five and the bar comes back empty, which leaves the participant with no way to move around the app.
Icons
Each tab has a default icon: a house, a compass, a bar chart, a speech bubble and a
person. On iPhone, icon_override takes the name of an icon from the phone's own
icon set, and a name the phone does not know falls back to the tab's default rather
than failing.
Android keeps its own default icons in this version. A tenancy that sets a custom icon gets that icon on iPhone and the default one on Android.
An icon override applies on both phones.
*Today: the iPhone uses your icon. Android keeps its own default one.Until then, treat a custom icon as an iPhone-only refinement, and pick a default icon you are content for Android to keep.
Explore has its own tabs inside it, and they are a different setting entirely.
The header button
What it is
One button, in the home header. It carries a word, an icon and a list of things it can offer. A single item opens straight away when the button is tapped. Two or more open a sheet listing them.
The button appears as soon as one item can be tapped, and the list of items is
the switch. Every new tenancy starts with an empty list, so fill it in to bring the
button up. A list of nothing but text blocks leaves it hidden, because text is not
tappable.
The button goes to one of three places: a booking flow, a web page, or the dialler.
The controls
| Field | What it accepts | Default | What changes on screen |
|---|---|---|---|
label | text, up to 40 characters | Open | The word on the button |
icon | one of the nine names below | a calendar | The icon on the button |
sheetTitle | text, up to 80 characters | the label | The heading of the sheet |
color | #RRGGBB | the accent colour | The button's background. Leaving it out takes the tenancy palette, which is usually the right answer. |
onColor | #RRGGBB | the brand colour | The word and icon on the button. Pick a pair with clear contrast between the two. |
items | up to 8 entries | empty | What the button offers. Eight is the limit, so keep the list to eight. Duplicate rows are removed before the count is taken, so two identical phone numbers cost one slot rather than two. |
The nine icon names are cloud, eye, cart, checklist, book, heart,
star, chat and phone. Anything else, including leaving it out, draws the
calendar.
The four kinds of item
| Kind | Fields | What tapping it does |
|---|---|---|
booking | label, flow, note | Opens this tenancy's booking flow, already signed in |
web | label, url, note | Opens a web page inside the app |
phone | label, number, note | Opens the phone's dialler and leaves the app |
text | text | Nothing. It is a line of explanation between the rows |
note is an optional second line under the row, up to 200 characters. A text block
runs to 300 characters.
url must begin https://, so every link the app opens is a secure one. Write
the https address and the row appears.
number is digits, with an optional leading plus, and nothing else. Three to
twenty digits, no spaces, brackets or dashes. Write the readable version in the
label or the note.
A row appears once its own fields are valid. A web row with a plain http
address, a phone number with brackets in it, or a booking row missing its flow will
not show. When a row is missing from the sheet, check that row's own fields before
you look anywhere else.
Showing an item to some people and not others
Any item can carry a list of group codes. Only members of one of those groups see it, and an item with no list is shown to everybody.
The filtering happens before the list leaves the platform, so a phone never receives a row the person is not entitled to. This is how a crisis line meant for one cohort stays off every other participant's screen.
If the filter leaves a participant with no tappable items, they see no button at all, while a colleague in that group sees one. Both are working correctly.
What you can now do
Set the frame of the app for one tenancy from the portal: which tabs a participant gets and what they are called, and one button in the home header carrying up to eight things, gated by group so the right people see the right rows.
That button is the one place a tenancy can put its own booking flow, phone number or web page in front of every participant on every visit, and it needs no release to change.