Re: UI Guidelines: Dialogs

[colin z robertson <c z robertson ndirect co uk>]

On Sun, Feb 11, 2001 at 03:08:37PM +1100, thristian atdot org wrote:
> Close and Cancel are the rightmost buttons, verb-buttons are to the
> left of "other buttons" - what are these "other buttons"?

Sorry, there aren't any. I'll try rewriting this section to make it a
bit clearer.


> > 	<para>
> > 	  FIXME: Does Gnome contain standard components for implementing these
> > 	  buttons?
> > 	</para>
> 
> There's a Druid widget, if Glade speaks true, but general
> "previous"/"next", I dunno.

hmm. The druid widget in Glade uses "Back" and "Next". Gimp's tip of
the day uses "Previous Tip" and "Next Tip". Gnome's startup hint uses
"Prev" and "Next"... Glade also has some stock buttons, including
"Prev" and "Next".

Any preferences?


> >        Should there be a principle that dialogs should not be
> >        dismissed by controls external to the dialog? 
> 
> For Modeless dialogs only, of course. Mmmm... a toolbar can be a
> modeless dialog, but that *should* be dismissed (and summoned) by
> external controls..

Right. I think I saw something about this in the Mac UI Guidelines and
wondered whether we should include it. It seems like there are some
classes of situations where they should be dismissed by external
controls. Can anyone think of any situations where they definitely
shouldn't be?


> I don't know if this is the place, but you might also want to mention
> things like keyboard tab order, layout (when to group controls, when
> not to), control-density (five-hundred text-boxes squished on a form,
> or a huge dialog box with two radio-buttons), spacing (though this is
> largely controlled by GTK, there's programmer-specifiable "padding" on
> most controls), where to use engraved dividers..

Yes, all of these should be addressed at some point, though some of
them should have their own section. Some of it is basic graphic design
principles.

I don't really know very much about keyboard navigation, because all I
do is tab between controls. I don't know what other facilities gtk
offers, nor what the best practice is. Any help on this is much
appreciated.

Does anyone have any opinions on the use of engraved dividers on
dialog boxes? There seems to be a tendency to put a divider above the
row of buttons at the bottom of the dialog. Should this be a standard?
(I'm not particularly keen on it, in general.)

colin

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