Navigating the app
The Best Farrier app was designed to use simple controls and icons, and have a consistent look and feel. Once you see how something works, you know it will work the same everywhere in the app. Here’s a rundown of the different parts of the screen and what the icons mean.
The Bottom Bar
This is how you move to the different sections of the app. It’s there almost all the time (except when you’re doing something outside the app like sending a text message) so it’s always accessible.
The icon in white indicates where you are at the moment.
When you tap on “More”, the app opens up a popup with additional navigation options.
The Top Bar
The top bar displays the title of the page you are viewing, and provides a back button you can use to go back to the previous page, when applicable. It also holds a few other controls used to interact with the page’s content.
On the main list pages (the invoices, contacts, horses, etc) the top bar usually shows the title, a filter button (“All” in the example above), an add new button () and a search button ().
Tapping on the filter button changes the list you see on the screen. For example, on the invoices list, you can view all invoices, or only the unpaid, paid or draft invoices.
The button adds a new item of the appropriate type, such as a new invoice if you’re viewing the invoice list.
The button lets you search the list, by typing what you’re looking for. For example, if you want to look for invoices for John Smith, you can tap on the search button, tap on the search field and start typing “john”. Tap the search icon again to stop filtering the list and show everything again.
On detail pages, the top bar typically shows a back arrow so you can go back to the previous page and when applicable, edit (), delete () and more () buttons. Not all buttons are displayed all the time. For example, when an item cannot be deleted, there will be no delete button on the top bar.
The opens up an editing page where you can modify the item.
The will delete the item and remove it from the database.
Tapping will open a popup with applicable extra options.
Different pages will have different options on their top bars. We will cover those options on their pages in this guide.
Iconography and controls
The app uses icons and special controls throughout to show information and provide you with visual clues as to what each part of the screen does.
Information icons
Those are icons on the left of the screen. When inside a circle, they provide information about the item they’re next to. For example, on the Contact list, the icons on the left show if the contact is a person, a stable or a business.
On editing screens, the icons are just hints about the field they precede, to make it easier to tell at a glance what the information is related to.
Action icons
Actions are round icons on the right of the screen. When tapped, they make things happen. The action is related to the item they’re next to, and the icon itself. For example, a message icon next to a phone number will send a text message to that number.
Other controls
There are a few other controls used throughout the app. They are always on the right side of the screen.
Whenever there is a on the right of the screen, that indicates you can tap that line and a detail page will open, showing details about the item you just tapped on. For example, tapping on the horse line of an appointment will bring up that horse’s information.
Tapping on will always display a popup menu with options relevant to the line that control is on. For instance, tapping on on the example below will open a menu allowing you to edit or delete that line.
A on the right of a field indicates that if you tap that field the app will show a list of values for you to choose from.