Views, Containers, changing between them.

[szeldon]

Hi.

The more I read about views and containers, the less I get their idea. I've read many threads on this forum, I've googled many times, I've read about them on this forum's wiki... And I don't get it. So where's the problem?

Let's suppose that I write an application that has main menu (list displayed when an application is started). Every item in this menu leads to application's modules. One is a dynamically created list of files being downloaded (like in torrent clients). Another is something else etc. So I've got a problem with thinking about this. Are this modules and main menu suppose to be views? If yes, why? Can I use changing of containers? If not, why? If I have to use views, why do I have to use them? Do views has to use containers? If so, why?

[wizard_hu_]

Others will certainly correct/complete me, but there are a couple of differences between a Container and a View:
- a Container is a CCoeControl-derived simple or compound control. It can handle some events (amongst them are redraw and keyboard events for example)
- a View is something more: although it usually encapsulates a Container, it has some mini-app capabilities too: a View has its own menu, CBA (you can check AVKON_VIEW resource in avkon.rh, it is nearly the same as EIK_APP_INFO for applications), and it also has its UID, which can be used for activating the view, even by an other application (it is also possible to pass parameters to a view)

In 2nd edition S60 SDK-s, you can find a multiviews example in Series60Ex (or S60Ex), in case of 3rd edition S60 SDK-s, IsvTel* and SIPExample uses views. Or you can download the source code of the mentioned bittorrent client (which also uses views) from http://symtorrent.aut.bme.hu, however it is not meant to be that educational.

[ViRuSTriNiTy]

i understood it this way: containers are used to format controls (e.g. positioning, alignment and stuff) and views are responsible for displaying controls. i think you can change the containers by dynamically creating it.