Show left and right panels simultaneously

[jodator]

Currently you cannot show two - left and right - panels at once. It would be ideal to make it configurable or by performing some action on panel's event to prevent closing panel on one side when opening panel on other side.

When using jQuery mobile for mobile only pages showing only one panel at the same time is perfectly fine. However when using jQuery mobile on bigger screens where is enough space to display right- and left-side panels it make sense to be able to open both.

[jaspermdegroot]

@jodator

Thanks for your request. We are planning on a rewrite of the panel widget for 1.6 or 1.7. If we want to make this possible it has to wait until then.

Personally I am not in favor of this change. Most of all because I think it's not user-friendly. I am curious what kind of content you have in the panels that you want to be open at the same time. Besides that it will cause some other issues.
For reveal and push panels it would mean squeezing the page content instead of shifting it. I don't think that's a good idea, so it should only be allowed for overlay panels.
Then there is the problem that the JS has to know about the width of the panels (which is defined in the CSS) and the width of the window. Also think about resizing / changing orientation while two panels are open.
We are considering adding top and bottom panels. Having top/bottom and left/right panels open at the same time should probably prevented as well.

Closing this ticket as feature request.

[wwalc]

Let me jump in here just to clarify the scenario where we need it.

The use case is quite reasonable I believe. We have a file manager (not released yet), which works in a different way on mobile devices and on desktop browsers. On desktop browser, when having enough space:

• on the left side there is a panel with folders tree that let's you select folders,
• in the middle there is the main space with files (thumbnails),
• in the top right corner there is a settings button which opens the right panel.

The right panel contains settings form. Settings affect how the files are displayed, e.g. the size of a thumbnail might be changed dynamically, the information about the file can be reduced (display size on/off etc.). At some stage setings form may also affect the folders tree.

Hiding the folders pane when settings form is opened is counterintuitive for desktop users. Thus the requirement of being able to show two panels at the same time.

[jaspermdegroot]

@wwalc

You might want to take a look at how we've done the same for our demos. The menu at the left is a panel, but we made its content always visible at wider screens with some custom CSS. At the right we have an overlay panel for search.

[cyberbeat]

I have another use case for a game: I display a message/chat view in the right panel, and a normal menu with settings and more in the left. for small screens, both panels are overlay, for wide screens the right one is a push-panel, which can be switched on/off while playing, and should not hide, when opening the menu.