Re: notes on combo boxes

[Joel Becker <jlbec evilplan org>]

On Sun, Aug 06, 2000 at 03:01:40PM -0700, Guy Harris wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 06, 2000 at 04:38:33PM -0500, Nils Barth wrote:
> I've bookmarked
> 
> 	http://www.mackido.com/Interface/

	So have I.  Nice bit, that.

> > First, there are 3 widgets I'd like to distinguish:
> > 1) pop-up menus: the Mac's way of doing selectable lists in one
> >    line. When clicked on, pops up to fill whole screen, with
> >    arrows on the end that if you mouse over, the menus scrolls.
> >    This scrolling happens at 2 speeds (faster if you go waaaay
> >    onto the arrow, slow if you just edge over).
> >    When you release the button, the item is picked.
> > This is basically an improved Motif menu, with scrolling
> 
> ...and with a better indicator than Motif's raised bar.

	This is the big problem I brought up.  The Motif/GTK+ widget
does not, in any way, describe what it means to do.

> > We need some kind of combo box, if only for interface designers
> > who like it.
> 
> By "combo box" are you referring here to an editable text widget in
> which you can type anything you want, but that offers a list of
> commonly-used options (or values you've typed there before, or...) from
> which you can select?
> 
> I think such a device can, in some situations, be useful.
> 
> > However, I would suggest:
> > We carefully consider the behaviour. I like the idea of an
> > edit box with a pop-up menu indicator right next to it.
> > This has basically the behaviour of a combo box while being
> > clearer (this is suggested on MacKiDo).

	I _love_ this suggestion.  You can economically differentiate
the two, w/o losing screen space or functionality.

Joel

-- 

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