Re: panel prelight on focus

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Trevor Curtis wrote:
 
> So the square around the launchers is intensional? I thought the icon
> was supposed to "prelight"? Is there an advantage with using this
> square? Is it a usability thing?

The dotted square shows keyboard focus, just as it does on other widgets
(buttons, notebook tabs etc.)  Only one control on your desktop should
have keyboard focus at any one time.

Prelighting only shows that the thing under your mouse pointer will
probably do something when you click on it, which is a different thing
altogether. It's an effect that was pioneered by Microsoft to cover up
for poor visual design, because they thought it would be cooler than
going to the trouble of making clickable things look clickable. 
(Originally it was toolbar buttons, in their case).

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems