0:00Hello and welcome to this short video
0:03tutorial on layout containers. I think
0:05layout containers
0:06are one of the most important parts of the
0:08dashboarding experience. Sometimes they
0:11behave
0:12slightly odd, so I thought I'd try and demy
0:15stify their behavior by showing you rather
0:18than
0:18just writing about it. So we've got three
0:21sheets. I've created these already. If you
0:25're
0:25familiar with the Information Lab Speed
0:28Challenge, you'll be very familiar with
0:30those sheets.
0:31But I thought I'd start by asking you, the
0:34viewer, if I drag a sheet onto this
0:36dashboard,
0:37what happens? Actually, at the moment it's
0:39not a blank dashboard. I'll completely
0:41clear
0:41out. So there we go, we've got a clear
0:43dashboard. If I drag a sheet onto this
0:45dashboard, what
0:45happens? And I think most of you would say
0:48that Tableau drags a sheet and it places it
0:51on the dashboard and on the right-hand side
0:54it creates a legend and any associated
0:57items,
0:58so parameters and filters would also go
1:01here. And that makes a lot of sense. But I
1:04'd actually
1:05challenge that perspective a little bit
1:06more and say, well, that's not actually
1:08what's
1:08going on. What's going on is happening over
1:12here. You've got a very detailed breakdown
1:15of what's actually happening on the
1:17dashboard. You've got your two legend items
1:20. They're
1:20inside a vertical container. You can see
1:23that as I highlight them here. Then you've
1:25got
1:25your sheet. The sheet is tiled next to that
1:28vertical container. So you can see there,
1:31they're side by side. I'll just collapse
1:34this to keep things clear. And then those
1:37two sort
1:38of sections, the tiled section and the
1:39vertical section, are inside a horizontal
1:42container.
1:43And the horizontal container is itself t
1:46iled on the main dashboard. And that just
1:48basically
1:49means, well, if you've only got one tile,
1:51then you're pretty much taking up the whole
1:53view. It's pretty straightforward. So in
1:59order to understand layout containers, I
2:02think you're
2:02actually better off not using any sheets
2:05and starting with blank layout containers.
2:08So
2:09you can truly understand what's going on.
2:12So I've just cleared those sheets from the
2:14dashboard and moved back to having a plain
2:17dashboard. And instead I'm going to drag a
2:19horizontal container in. And when I do that
2:22, you notice immediately the Tableau creates
2:26a tiled section and then it puts a
2:28horizontal container. And that's, I guess,
2:32the first
2:33thing to be aware of. Everything that you
2:35drag onto the dashboard from the very
2:36moment
2:37you start is essentially being tiled. And
2:40that's because we've selected the tiling
2:42option
2:43here. If I was to select floating and then
2:45drag a horizontal section on there, you'd
2:48see this sits above the tiled section. It's
2:53floating. It doesn't have any sort of
2:57belonging
2:58anywhere. You can move it around. It's not
3:00part of any structure. And that's a really
3:02important thing to notice. And if you
3:05change that from a floating to a tiled
3:08section, well,
3:09guess what? Tableau puts it where it thinks
3:12it makes the most sense. So if I deselect
3:17that and I select the parent horizontal
3:21layout container and we go to format that,
3:24see if
3:25we can make it a different color, you can
3:28just see here on the edge the red layout
3:30container
3:31is inside the yellow one. So that's sort of
3:36one of the first things to understand. The
3:39difference between tiled and floating
3:43layout containers. The next thing to
3:46understand is
3:47the hints that Tableau gives you when you
3:50drag an item onto the dashboard. So if I
3:53drag
3:53a horizontal container onto an empty
3:56dashboard and hopefully make sure the tiled
4:00section
4:00is triggered, when I put it anywhere in the
4:04middle, it highlights the whole dashboard
4:07gray. And that's telling me that it's just
4:10going to put it there in one tile on the
4:12dashboard.
4:13Because there's nothing else on the
4:15dashboard, if I go to the edges, nothing
4:17happens because
4:18it's the first item on the dashboard. So
4:20let's put that in there and let's color
4:23that yellow.
4:26And if we take another horizontal container
4:29, notice how now the hints are different. So
4:32when I highlight the layout container that
4:35I've already got on the dashboard, it tells
4:38me that you can put something inside of
4:40this layout container because you can see
4:42here
4:42that the yellow box now has a blue outline
4:44all the way around. And that's Tableau's
4:46hint
4:47to you that whatever you're dragging on,
4:49whatever part of the dashboard that you're
4:52about to
4:53bring on is going to be inside this layout
4:55container. And this layout container is a
4:57horizontal one. If, however, I go to the
5:01edge, you can see it's a very thin edge,
5:04then it's
5:05essentially going to tile it in the same
5:09position. If I bring it to the bottom, it
5:12will tile
5:12it in that bottom half. If I bring it to
5:15the left, it will tile it in the left half.
5:19If
5:19I bring it to the top, it will tile it in
5:21the top. But the minute I move off the edge
5:25,
5:25it instantly goes to highlighting the whole
5:27thing because, again, I've got really no
5:29other
5:29option. So I'm going to put that here just
5:32below. I missed that. Let's try again.
5:37Perfect.
5:39And let's make this a green section. It's
5:42perfect. We have a green section. Now let's
5:46bring in two verticals. And now when we
5:48bring in a vertical, you get the same
5:51options as
5:51you did before. So I can put it inside this
5:54yellow horizontal container or the green
5:56horizontal
5:57container. But now when I go to the edge, I
5:59'm faced with two new options. I get this
6:03option to tile it with the existing
6:05horizontal section at the top, to tile it
6:08with the existing
6:09horizontal section in the bottom right, or
6:13to tile it with both layout containers. Now
6:16if I put that here, it tiles it adjacent to
6:21those two sections. That's not actually
6:24where
6:24I want to put that. I actually want to put
6:25it right here in the top right. So I'm
6:27going
6:27to go back as I just did, and I'm going to
6:30drag the vertical container. And when I get
6:33to nearly the edge but not quite, you can
6:35see it just changes. And then when I go to
6:37the edge again, it changes again. Very
6:40small movements. So if I just drop that
6:43there, it
6:43might make that blue. We now have a blue
6:49vertical layout container next to the
6:53yellow layout
6:54container. And we're going to do that again
6:56. We're going to make a red one here on the
6:59bottom right. Did exactly the same thing.
7:03We're going to make that red. So now we
7:07have
7:08four amazing pastel layout containers. Two
7:12horizontal and two vertical. Awesome. Okay,
7:17so now this is probably a good opportunity
7:20to explain some of the sort of dashboarding
7:23options you've got here. You've got a whole
7:26range of size options. I don't think enough
7:28people really play around with these sizes.
7:31Recently I've been designing some dash
7:33boards
7:33for print, and it's actually been really
7:36useful to have the A3 or A4 sort of
7:39perspective there.
7:40So be sure to play around with those sizes.
7:43Tableau dashboards just don't live on the
7:46screen. They live well beyond that. And so
7:51I'm going to go to an automatic view, and
7:55I'm just going to close that, and I'm going
7:59to drag Tableau here. And you see this is a
8:03very fluid design. When we make the height
8:06minimal, it splits everything equally in
8:09terms
8:09of vertical height. And if you make it
8:12really wide, it splits everything really
8:14nicely vertically.
8:16So Tableau does have the ability to be
8:18fluid. And you're probably thinking, "Yes,
8:20well,
8:21how do I do this in a dashboard?" We'll
8:23cover that in the next video. But at the
8:26moment,
8:27I just want to cover the basics. Now, one
8:31of the things I often see from, I guess,
8:34new
8:34users is they start dragging a lot of
8:36things onto the dashboard, and it gets
8:38pretty hectic
8:39in terms of layout containers and what's
8:41going on, and they're not really paying
8:43attention
8:43to this area. And I'll show you one really,
8:45really good example of that. So I drag a
8:48text
8:48container here onto the horizontal layout
8:54container, and I say "First line of text."
9:00I click OK. You can see, there you go, my
9:04first line of text has been placed inside
9:07the horizontal container. Now, if I drag
9:11another text box and I go to put it there,
9:16now notice
9:17where that is. I'm not tiling it. It's
9:20actually saying, "Put it inside the layout
9:23container,"
9:24but it's also highlighting the bottom gray
9:26section. So you would think that when I
9:29drop
9:29that in there, you get two horizontal
9:39containers. But actually, no, that's not
9:41what happened.
9:42What happened is Tableau decided that when
9:45you placed that second line of text below
9:48the first line of text, you were actually
9:51vertically stacking the options. Whereas
9:54before,
9:54this was a horizontal container, it's now
9:57changed into a vertical container, and it's
9:59adopted the behavior of a vertical
10:01container. So if we go back one, you'll
10:03notice that was
10:04a horizontal container, and now it's a
10:08vertical container. So that's one of the
10:11things to
10:12watch out for. Sometimes when you're
10:15dragging elements and you put things where
10:18it would
10:19suggest that you actually want different
10:21behavior, Tableau will make a change based
10:24on that assumption.
10:26And just to prove that that's the case, I'm
10:29going to drag a new text item here, call
10:33that
10:33first line of text. Click OK. And drag a
10:42second line of text there. And there you go
10:48. Exactly
10:48the same behavior, and those are both
10:51vertical. You can see that there, I'm
10:53selecting them
10:54here in the layout view. So it's really,
10:56really important to pay attention to what's
10:58going
10:58on here. And this can happen the other way
11:02around. So you can do it to a horizontal
11:06container,
11:07but it's actually slightly more difficult
11:10to do the same thing with a vertical
11:12container,
11:12to make a vertical container stack
11:15horizontally. And I find that the only way
11:17really to do
11:18this is if you happen to use a blank layout
11:22container in the layout. So if I drag a
11:25blank
11:25layout container here onto this vertical
11:30container here, you'll notice, OK, that's
11:34still vertical.
11:36And you've got the blank section inside of
11:38that. You can see that. But now if I drag
11:40a text item and I put it on either side and
11:46I click, and I'm going to say, "This used
11:52to be a vertical container." Click OK. You
11:57'll notice that vertical container now
12:02became
12:02a horizontal container. And let's just go
12:07back one step to prove that. Vertical is
12:11now
12:11horizontal. So when users are dragging
12:15around lots of items, maybe you've got a
12:18dashboard
12:18with six or seven sheets, you've maybe got
12:21some floating items, you've got a parameter
12:23that you want to wedge in a specific area,
12:25it's really important to pay attention to
12:28the hints that Tableau is giving you. It's
12:30pretty much telling you what's about to
12:32happen
12:32before it happens. So if you pay attention
12:34to those, you're less likely to get lost on
12:37the dashboard. And so that's it. That's the
12:40first video showing you the basics around
12:42layout containers.
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