Combining a table and hierarchical list in HTML

Question

I\'m working to redesign a legacy toolset and I\'m looking at how to better display some information both presentationally and semantically.

The data hierarchically in n

Answer 1

Why not both? A tree grid is a good way to represent tabular data that also conforms to a hierarchy.

This is one such example.

However, having used Extjs on two very large projects, my own personal recommendation is to stay away from it if you're going to be producing a large application. While it may be fine for a one-off grid, I personally find that it's poorly implemented and can become more cumbersome as the size of the project increases. However, it is very feature rich, so the examples panel may give you some more ideas on grids (tables) that might help you.

Keep in mind that you should always be asking yourself, "what questions are my users trying to answer?" Then, ask yourself, "which graphical devices give the clearest and simplest path to answering that question?"

One book that really helped me with these questions was the dashboard design book. Even though you may not be building a dashboard, it has many UX techniques and theories that have made it easier for me when selecting the appropriate UI element (with respect to data).

Hope that helps...