58.1 The Primary/Detail Flow
A primary/detail flow is an interface design concept whereby a list of items (referred to as the primary list) is displayed to the user. On selecting an item from the list, additional information relating to that item is then presented to the user within a detail pane. An email application might, for example, consist of a primary list of received messages consisting of the address of the sender and the subject of the message. Upon selection of a message from the primary list, the body of the email message would appear within the detail pane.
On tablet sized Android device displays in landscape orientation, the primary list appears in a narrow vertical panel along the left-hand edge of the screen. The remainder of the display is devoted to the detail pane in an arrangement referred to as two-pane mode. Figure 58-1, for example, shows the primary/detail, two-pane arrangement with primary items listed and the content of item one displayed in the detail...