# TIP: Adapting to Tablets

DevFeed: [TIP: Adapting to Tablets](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/tip-adapting-to-tablets-19561.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.codenameone.com/blog/tip-adapting-to-tablets/>)

Author: Shai Almog

Published: 2019-03-04T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [CodeName One](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/codename-one.md>)

Topics: [App](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/app.md>), [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [API](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/api.md>)

Tags: [api](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/api.md>), [app-development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/app-development.md>), [classes](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/classes.md>), [compilation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/compilation.md>), [development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/development.md>), [how-to](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/how-to.md>), [phone-app](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/phone-app.md>), [phones](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/phones.md>), [subclass](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/subclass.md>)

## AI overview

This tutorial presents a "phone first" approach for adapting Codename One applications to tablets. It describes building the phone version first, then restructuring forms and subclasses to support a tablet layout with a permanent side menu and replaceable content. The author notes that generalizing the approach into a standardized API has been difficult.

## Source excerpt

A while back someone asked on stackoverflow how to adapt a Codename One app to tablets. I provided quite a few references in the answer and following discussion but I think a better approach is to explain what we did with the recent Codename One Build app because that's what I've been doing in all recent apps I worked on. I call this approach the "phone first" approach for universal app development. It starts by forgetting about the tablet and focusing on building a good looking phone app. In this app I usually subclass Form for all the classes which instantly creates an app that's very suitable for phones.