Re: [Usability] Inconsistent states

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On Thu, 2004-12-16 at 06:09 +0300, Kenny Chamber wrote:
> We're considering how to handle inconsistent states in Gtk widget for Dia.
> We have various widgets like checkbuttons, entry fields, spinners, and
> optionmenus, and need to be able to show an inconsistent state for these
> when editing the properties of several objects.  One widget has an
> inconsistent state: GtkToggleButton has gtk_toggle_button_set_inconsistent,
> but how to mark other things inconsistent?

Probably worth looking at how something like MS Excel does this on
Windows for its cell properties dialog... it has all sorts of widgets in
there.  In general, IIRC, they just tend to show inconsistent text
fields (including those in combo boxes) as empty, and for dropdown lists
they add and pre-select an extra blank item.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             Java Desktop System Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems