Re: [g-a-devel] How to indicate disabled state

[Willie Walker <William Walker Sun COM>]

Thanks!  These help.  Let's focus on the SENSITIVE state as a means to 
do what you want.  I verified all these examples using at-poke.

> 1) The user tabs to the Close button in the gedit settings dialog. In
> this case, we might say the name of the button, the role of the
> button, and the mnemonic for the button.
>   

In this case, it is not grayed and it is SENSITIVE.

> 2) The user reviews to a grayed out menu item in gedit. In this case,
> we might say the name of the menu item, the role of the menu item, and
> the word "disabled" to indicate that the menu item is not currently
> active. We want to say "disabled" here to inform the user that this
> menu item could potentially become enabled for regular interaction by
> changing the state of the program (e.g. inserting some new text in a
> document enables the Save menu item).
>   

Let's take the "Revert" menu item, which is grayed until you make 
changes to a file that you've saved or read in.  The "Revert" menu item 
doesn't have the SENSITIVE state until you make a change to the contents 
on the screen.  As soon as you make a change, it gets the SENSITIVE 
state and is ungrayed.

> 3) The user reviews to the toolbar in the gedit main window. In this
> case, we might say the text on the toolbar and its role. However, we
> do not want to say "disabled" because this the toolbar is never
> technically enabled for interaction. That is, we do not want the user
> thinking it could be enabled for interaction by changing the state of
> the program (e.g. nothing I do in the program will ever enable/disable
> the toolbar such that I can interact with it).
>   

In this case, the toolbar has the SENSITIVE state and is not grayed.

Hope this helps, (and I'm sure you have some  "but, yeah, what about 
this" questions ;-)),

Will