Re: notes on combo boxes

[Caleb Land <bokonon rochester rr com>]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2000, Guy Harris wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 04, 2000 at 01:02:05PM -0400, Caleb Land wrote:
> > Someone submitted a GTK patch which made the menus scrollable ala MacOS,
> 
> I assume that's MacOS's way of solving the Really Long List problem?

	Well, I have a Macintosh Classic running a fairly old OS (version
7.5.5) and the list doesn't expand to the height of the screen, and has 
arrows on the top and bottom of the list.  The GTK scrollable menu patch
made the menu expand to the height of the screen and included arrows.

> 
> > it is a
> > solution to the problem, but I personally still prefer the non-editable
> > combo box.
> 
> Just out of curiosity, why?  I also tend to prefer it, but I don't know
> whether that's the result of
> 
> 	1) familiarity;
> 
> 	2) not popping up a Big Menu for a Big List (even if the Big
> 	   Menu is scrollable; if MacOS limits the size of the menu to
> 	   something reasonable, that sounds somewhat like, err, umm, a
> 	   non-editable combo box, the one issue with which that I can
> 	   see is that it might be popped up in a size that requires
> 	   scrolling even if a larger size would still work well and
> 	   show the entire list).

	I don't like a really huge list on the screen (like the patch that
was submitted), plus, I like scollbars, not arrows.  For really long lists
(for example ebay categories) it's easier to scroll half way down the list
than it is to hold the mouse button down on the scoll button.

> 
> > 	As far as them not being intuitive, this may be true, and maybe a
> > downward arrow would be a better image than the dash.  Though this isn't
> > really to big an issue, because I think that people make things intuitive
> > for themselves (a UNIX user would tell you that a -f command switch it
> > intuitive :)) and since GTK+ is a fairly widely used toolkit, it will
> > become intuitive as more people use it.
> 
> They probably do, but if something can be done to make it take less time
> for them to do so, that'd perhaps be an improvement nonetheless.

	I don't think it's good to be non-intuitive.  I think the problem
lies more with custom widgets that aren't apparent as to what they do
(similar to XMMS's wharf-like playlist manipulation buttons).  I read the
mentioned Apple pages, and I do agree that there should be some indicator
that there is a menu under a button (like a down arrow).

> 
> There's an interesting paper at
> 
> 	http://www.asktog.com/papers/raskinintuit.html

	The article is correct.  That's why most modern graphical
interfaces look similar because if they deviate too much, they will
encounter criticism from a lot of people (even if the new interface is
actually easier to use once one learns it).

Caleb Land
(bokonon@rochester.rr.com)