I had to brute force my way through “mastering” perspective, and it still has many aspects that I am not sure I am handling perfectly correct. However here are a few tips I can provide for someone transitioning from Vision into Perspective for the first time.
1. The coordinate container is your enemy, and the flex container is your friend!
Everyone ALWAYS seems to latch onto coordinate containers because they feel really familiar compared to vision, however the further you get into your journey with Perspective you will realize this is not the best way to approach things. In the beginning nesting flex containers is almost always the way to go when trying to put together responsive pages. The more you build pages in this way, the more obvious it will become, and you will realize that your starter coordinate container pages were just not the right way to go.
2. Love the transform
Binding transforms in Perspective are one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal. Being able to query database data, then manipulate it before displaying it on the screen is very powerful. You will start to see how you can make applications extremely dynamic by utilizing transforms.
3. Always bind UP and not Down!
I always would find people binding components to properties of other components in ways that just fall apart in Perspective. In perspective when you change the structure of the page with new nested containers, you will break all of your bindings and be extremely unhappy. Utilize custom properties on your view in scenarios when you need two or more components to share a piece of data. That way when you bind the components to their parent properties, you will find that you can put them in any kind of containers you want without ever breaking your pages.
4. Leverage the knowledge on the Exchange
One of the most crucial steps when I was learning Perspective, was when the Exchange was released. It was the first time that I was able to “see how the pros at Inductive” did things. When I first used the Ad-Hoc Trends page by @mraybourn it taught me numbers 1-3 in this list! I had started to realize those on my own, but it confirmed my thoughts that I was headed in the right direction. I haven’t gone through everything on the exchange obviously, but look and find something useful to you. Then pick it apart and see how someone else did it.
5. Use the forums!
You are already halfway there on this one with this post! The most valuable place to find information on Perspective right now is right here in these forums. The module is still so new and different than Vision that even the documentation sometimes doesn’t have all of the information you might need. When you are not sure how to accomplish something, post it, and there are a handful of people here deep in Perspective that will be able to solve your question. If not @cmallonee seems to know everything about it… hahahaa
6. Realize that Perspective is nothing like Vision
This may sound obvious or not, but Perspective and Vision are so completely different from each other. They may both be parts of Ignition, but in terms of practices and procedures and just about everything they are different. Realize this, drop your Vision habits, and try to learn web based practices and you will be better off.
This may not have been exactly the answer you were looking for, as I don’t think there is any course to just jump in and master Perspective. I think that the classes provided by IA are probably good (I have never taken one), but I know that’s not always an option. The certification is really good for teaching you how to navigate the designer, but unfortunately being 7.9 and 8 core + gold certified I can tell you that it doesn’t always teach you best practice.
If you have any other questions let me know, I am always willing to try to share the experience that I have with Perspective to help others.