Repeating groups on same or on different pages?

Need help App Organization
1

I am trying to make a design decision and I don’t know which way to go.

I have five or so repeating groups that I want to display to the user. From a pure information perspective it makes sense to display them all on the same page, but not at the same time. Each repeating group retrieves data from a different table and each repeating group has a separate layout.

I can build this in two ways, and I don’t know which is best. They would seem exactly the same to the user, so it is a purely technical decision.

The first way is to create a separate page for each repeating group. I would then put selection buttons/icons in a header row (reusable element) on top of all the pages. The user would click a button and the header row stays the same but the repeating group below changes. Not very complicated.

My second option is to put all repeating groups on the same page, but in separate containers. I would then use custom states connected to the buttons in the header to make a certain group appear and all others disappear (and collapse). I think this would be completely identical to the first alternative from a user perspective.

I can see one huge disadvantage of option two if Bubble populates the repeating groups att page load, even if the repeating group is not shown since this would impact performance. Perhaps also option two is “messier” and therefore harder to maintain. It might be cleaner to use separate pages. So, I am leaning towards option one, to use separate pages, but are there advantages to having all repeating groups on the same page?

2

When you say pages do you actually mean pages as using a go to page action or is it just tabs within the same page?

If you have to go to another page every time, the performance will be worse than using hidden groups inside of the same page and the user will experience a “blip” of the screen because the header is often not persistent when using an action that reloads or changes the page – unless you created a workaround.

Also, you don’t have to load the datasouce of any repeating group initially. You can use a condition to display the dataset into the repeating group when the user is ready for it.

3

Your first sentence actually contains both the alternatives I am thinking of. One is the “tab” alternative and one is completely separate pages, where I would use a go to page action.

You answered my question perfectly, Thanks a million. Now I know that I should choose the tab option because flipping between pages makes performance deteriorate and I didn’t think of the little hickup when pages load, which can be irritating.

Thanks again! :slight_smile: