Flexibility without Limits
The breakpoint layout is the most comprehensive choice when you want to develop a project that works for sessions of many shapes and sizes. Unlike column and flex layouts, which offer ways of controlling how a fixed set of components respond to changes in screen size, a breakpoint layout expects two entirely distinct subviews. This makes the breakpoint layout a powerful, but more involved choice of layout.
There are many circumstances that call for this layer of abstraction. Maybe operators using mobile phones need different control options than desktop computers at a coordinating hub. Or more fundamentally, maybe you can't quite pack as much functionality per view into a mobile screen as you can in its desktop counterpart, and need to add a couple more views to your mobile version to bridge the gap.
A breakpoint layout might be a good idea if you want small and large versions of your session to have:
- Differing components
- Differing properties, bindings, or layout behavior
- Differing navigation options
When designing pages for mobile and desktop applications, it's important to consider not only the type of layout, but if your design fits nicely on a page in a mobile session. Some pages may work for a desktop session, but may not work for a mobile device such as expecting a user to enter data into multiple tables on a mobile session that don't fit seamlessly across a page.