I'd like to be able to double-click an item in a list-box% to bring up an editor, or hover over things to display tooltips, but mouse-event% only covers 'enter' and 'left-up and I'd rather not have to start comparing event timestamps just to detect hover/double-click. keymap% looks like it might be able to handle the double-click but that seems to be designed for use with editors. Is there a way to connect a keymap% to other control types as well?
As for tooltips, it looks like they were going to implement them a few years ago but there's no evidence that anything actually happened...
For double click, control-event% has a list-box-dclick type.
tooltip-mixin in gui-widget-mixins seems like what you need.
Related
I've got my workspace windows set up like this:
Then I Navigate away from my story board to replace the left window with some code so i Can compare two code documents like this:
When I navigate back to my storyboard, it resets the document outline column to this:
How the frak do I configure window sizing presets? Coming from an Adobe background I'm used to having a preference somewhere that allows me to save interface layouts and sizing presets. The closest thing I can find is "behaviors", but this doesn't seem to control the sizing of columns and windows.
Seems like the best way to handle this is by using "Tabs"
I found this very helpful blog post.
I want to put help buttons on all my windows, like this:
But when I put the help button in, the minimize/maximize buttons disappear. Does Windows forbid having the min/max buttons together with the help buttons? That would be disappointing because that would mean I could put the help button only on dialogs and not on frames.
If Windows does forbid this, it would be nice to see an official Microsoft document which talks about this policy.
It is not possible through setting windows styles. If you really wanted to you could set some hooks that would probably let you do what you want, but I would not recommend doing that. You can mimic the functionality of the help button by sending the WM_HELP message.
According to MSDN, the styles WS_MAXIMIZEBOX and WS_MINIMIZEBOX can not be combined with WS_EX_CONTEXTHELP.
Although it is true what daalbert says, with some effort it is indeed possible to draw just about anything properly on the window frame. Of course this is in no way "official" and the limitation that daalbert mentions still stands.
You can listen for WM_NCPAINT and draw the button yourself with the help of DrawFrameControl with DFC_BUTTON (which makes sure it will look like the real thing). Use WM_NCHITTEST and friends (WM_NC*BUTTON*) to find out whether the button you draw gets clicked.
So yes, it's technically possible to achieve what you want but usually not worth the extra effort.
Just wanted to have this on record for completeness.
I don't work with Graphical interfaces very much, most of my experience has been with Java. I realize the operating system provides some "native" controls that allow you to do things. What if I want to do things that are a little more fancy but feel like the native control?
What I'm thinking is having the simplicity of editing in a TextArea while provide the ability to collapse lists just like a tree. I would also like to be able to display text between lines that the user could click, it should be aligned under the right most text and be smaller.
I'm not thinking in terms of any language or GUI library. Just wondering how to go about creating something like this. Would I overlay some drawing onto the TextArea which would scroll with it? Would I use something like Cairo and build my own text field losing built in copy and paste...
What do other text editors use that allow them to fold code?
There is no universal solution to this. It varies depending on GUI. Every GUI has a different way of responding to user events such as mouse clicks, keyboard shortcuts, etc. There is no universal approach to this.
Is there a way to get colored checkboxes like in iCal without using custom drawing?
I have looked through the documentation but can only find how to change the background and text color.
You can achieve something at least similar to the colored checkboxes in iCal by enabling Core Animation for the checkbox and adding a "Hue Adjust" (in "Color Adjustment") content filter. If the color is static, this can be done entirely within Interface Builder, no code needed.
Be careful, though, as sometimes enabling Core Animation for various views causes strange bugs (for example, WebViews don't play nice with Core Animation views).
If you want to do it programmatically, take a look at the documentation for CIFilter (that's a link), which you use with the NSView instance method setContentFilters: (also a link).
It's a bit dated (runs back on 10.3), but Matt Gemmell published a some code for doing colored checkboxes a few years back.
http://mattgemmell.com/source
Look for "iTableView."
I looked at the code when it was first available, but not since. There might be a better way to do it at this point.
I'm afraid not. I'm not sure if the AHIG forbids this sort of thing or not, (it probably does), but the reason iCal gets away with it is because, 'Hey! Why not?'. Also, it's an Apple application, so yeah.
It can still be done, of course, but not without custom drawing. Personally, I'd advise against it, and rather see if what you are trying to achieve could be achieved some other way. If not, you could possibly use some of the data files from iCal to build your checkbox. (Unsure of how kosher that would be, but 'Hey! Why not?'.)
I am designing the (G)UI of a program, and have stumbled across a problem; The program will convert a number into different units, and the layout of a unit been converted to is:
[Unit name (when clicked gives information)]
[Special status, if any]
[Output in textfield that can also be used for input (to convert to other units)]
I want the user to be able to copy an outputnumber onto the clipboard, without having to mess around with highlighting and finding the right buttons to press. So, I thought I'd make a button after the text-output field, saying something like "C" or "Copy".
But I was reading on joelonsoftware.com yesterday, and discovered that users seem to be cursorclumsy. So what should I do?
I've thought about a number of different options:
Click on textfield to copy to clipboard - BUT: I want to use it for input as well
Pressing a numeral on the keyboard to copy the respective one - BUT: There will probably be more than 10, and I need them for new input
Bigger Copy button, like on that actually says "Copy" - Hmm, would this work? I know that I like to use the keyboard when I can, so a solution involving it would be nice.
Each unit will have its own space, where everything (name, textfield etc.) fits in. What if it would copy to clipboard when clicked anywhere in that space except for on the name or textfield. - BUT: What if you miss, meaning to click below one textfield, and clicking above another?
But what about highlighting the unit's space as I went along? - Could still mean trouble...
What do you think? I think I just might opt for #3 - Bigger copy-button..
There's nothing wrong with a Copy button after every field if you feel that it's going to be a very common operation.
Two suggestions, however:
In terms of look and feel, make sure that the button is clearly associated with the field. For a text field, the best way to do this is to put the Copy button inside the text field (on the right side - but be prepared to handle RTL languages by switching its position as needed!).
To avoid making it overly big, don't use any text, but rather use the stock Windows icon for Copy (like this one: ), and put the text into its tooltip. If you do that, you may also get rid of button border entirely, further reducing its size, though you'd still want some visual hover indicator to make it clear that it's an active UI element. In fact, you might want to specifically copy Vista/Win7 Explorer (also seen in IE7/8) UI for location field and the Reload icon in it.
I think the solution #3 is the best in your list, but I would like to see a sketch of your GUI.
What ever you do, it is important to use the OS standard keyboard and mouse event bindings and preferable look-and-feel too otherwise users get confused.
For sheer speed, the keyboard is the way to go. How about letters A-Z to copy the text boxes instead? Skip “E” to allow scientific notation to be inputted. Potential speed is high, but learnability is low. I’d expect users will have a hard time figuring out this UI even with explanatory text on the page/window, and if users have to read explanatory text, then the time that takes will likely negate the time savings of the UI, unless the user is using the app all the time (Joel also writes correctly that users hate to read).
For an app that will be used only occasionally, the big button is a better choice, the bigger the better, as predicted by Fitts’s Law. And absolutely label it “Copy,” not “C” and not an icon, to maximize learnability. Your other ideas have learnability and tolerance issues without the speed of the keyboard.
That said, I think you’re taking what Joel says too far. Certainly you want to eliminate unnecessary clicks, but the typical design for this type of app would require one click on the text box (which should by default highlight the whole value) followed by one click on a Copy menu item –or better, Alt-C or Ctrl-C from the keyboard. It’s hard for me to imagine a task where saving one click or a couple keyboard presses would be worth the clutter of a bank of Copy buttons beside your text boxes. Are you also going to have buttons for Paste and Clear? At some point the clutter will slow your users down more than the extra click.
How often are users going to be copying? If it’s really dozens of times per session, then you should re-think the whole design approach because any copying and pasting of one number at a time is going to get tedious. Maybe you should support batch processing, taking multiple numbers at once and outputting results in a form already suitable for the expected use. Maybe have it work within other apps like the way Enso does: user highlights a number in any document or text field of any app, commands Convert - Feet - Meters and it’s changed in the document or field.
If you accidentally click on the wrong area, you could just click on the right area after that. If your issue lies in the user not knowing when they click on the wrong area, just highlight the last-clicked area.
Is there a problem with copying whatever is in the textfield when they click on it? So what if it's being used for input? They're just going to copy the value they need after they type values in.
You could also have a ctrl-click or shift-click in the text box be a copy.
Most people know how to copy text on their own computer. Perhaps the best solution is to just auto-highlight all the text in a textbox when it gets focus so they can just ctrl-c to copy or start typing to begin input.