I am trying to build a form with a phone input that includes country codes. Essentially, I am trying to make something a lot like this:
I already found and cleaned a list of flags, countries, and their codes, and built the method that creates a DropdownMenuItem for an arbitrary index. I then construct a list of them and pass it to the DropdownButton widget. It's all very simple, so I don't think the code is necessary. However, because I have so many countries, and therefore menu items, the menu lags significantly when opening. So, I was wondering if drop down menus are capable of loading large numbers of widgets in a smarter fashion than it seems they do.
Can a drop down menu could load the first 10 or so widgets around the selected index and display them, as that is all that will be in view initially, and then load the rest of the widgets asynchronously? I suspect that this will require a custom drop down menu, but I am not very well versed in the implementation of Flutter's drop down menu, so I am unsure of how to proceed with this.
Any help is appreciated.
I don't think that "loading" is the actual problem here, more likely it's the rendering/building of the widgets. You can improve the situation by using something like a ListView.builder that builds items on demand.
It seems like the default dropdown system is not based on a ListView.
You can create your own version of the dropdown (like a complete customized copy of the classes), which will require quite quite a lot of work and research.
Or alternatively, use something like a SimpleDialog with an embedded ListView to display the list. Like this one for Android.
I am looking for a control many of us probably know, but I don't know it's name and don't have a real screenshot by hand, just this sketch:
In the left box one can select an operation or whatever, which then is moved to the right side. With the up/down arrows on the right, one can move this operation (or whatever kind of meaning the entry has) up or down in the order of execution.
How is this kind of control called? Or is it normally build by developers out of single controls? Is this control available in JavaFX 2? If not, I don't need exactly this control, but a control with the following features:
User can select multiple operations (duplicates allowed) out of all available operations
The user can arrange their order of execution
Thanks for any hint :-)
You need to use multiple controls to build up your interface. Use two ListViews with a MultipleSelectionModel for each (or at least the left one) and add a couple of buttons, that copy selected items from one list to the other and another couple of buttons which modify the position of selected items in the right list view by modifying the view's underlying item list.
listView.getSelectionModel().setSelectionMode(SelectionMode.MULTIPLE);
I need to implement a threaded view of sorts in an old VB6 app. It should look similar to this:
So, it's like a TreeView of sorts but there are buttons on the right (for each row) that could be pressed. The view does not need to collapse - it always stays in the expanded mode. The users should be able to respond to each node (via the comment button on the far right). And, of course, users should be able to scroll through the entries.
What are some of the ways I could implement this? I am open to 3rd party controls, paid or not.
VSFlexGrid has an outline mode. You can set the indent per row via the RowOutlineLevel property. It supports word wrap, images, etc within its cells/columns so you should be able to get pretty close to what you want. It also supports owner-drawn which lets you fully customize the cell painting (for example, to get those rounded corners).
I'm sure there are other controls out there as well...
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I'm writing an internal-tools webapp; one of the central pages in this tool has a whole bunch of related commands the user can execute by clicking one of a number of buttons on the page, like this:
toolbar http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/1928/commands.png
Ideally, all of the buttons would fit on one line. Ordinarily I'd do this by changing each widget from a button with a (sometimes long) text label to a simple, compact icon - e.g.
button labelled "Save" http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/773/saver.png
could be replaced by a familiar disk icon:
Unfortunately, I don't think I can do this for every button on this particular page. Some of the command buttons just don't have good visual analogs - "VDS List". Or, if I needed to add another button in the future for some other kind of list, I'd need two icons that both communicate "list-ness" and which list. So, I'm still considering this option, but I don't love it.
So it's come time for me to add yet another button to this section (don't you love internal tools?). There's not enough room on that single line to fit the new button. Aside from the icon solution I already mentioned, what would be a good* way to simplify/declutter/reduce or otherwise improve this UI?
*As per Jakob Nielsen's article, I'd like to think that a dropdown menu is not the solution.
Edit: I'm not looking for input about the icon idea. I'm looking for other solutions. Sorry my example disk icon was a small one; it was just an example. I'm showing a bigger one now to hopefully be more clear.
I would add a More Link Like Google does.
See the Top Bar of Google with WeB Images Map More >>
To this more >> drop down you can add logic to add button less frequently used by user or something like that.
If you read Jef (and Aza) Raskin, you'll probably realize that icons are also not a good solution – both were pretty vocal in their dislike for them (with very few notable exceptions). For a start they're even harder to hit than tiny buttons, then their symbols can be confusing, culture-dependent and misleading. We're already good at reading text, parsing and interpreting icons is often slower.
In any case, that button bar looks like it accommodates pretty much anyone and their dog who might be using that product. You might have had some specific scenarios in mind when creating it that should be easy to do and are important. Most likely not all buttons are needed at once for such a task to complete.
Another thing is that maybe not all buttons are even useful at any single state of the application. Can you maybe branch into different sets of buttons, depending on the state. That's only possible however, if each state has clearly defined what actions can be taken. If all buttons are equally pressable regardless of state this won't do anything.
Grouping commands according to related functionality might also be an option. This doesn't have to be done with menu-like idioms, you can also put them into containers with different background color or even color the buttons themselves (just keep in mind color blindness, though). Depending on how related those individual functions are this can be a good way of speeding up interaction. It might requier some training for users to know what the colors refer to but for an in-house tool that's only used by people you know (instead of by arbitrary random ones [which is a problem Microsoft faces quite prominently]) this should pose not much of a problem.
What if you use icons and text?
For the commonly understood commands - use just an icon (like the save)
For the uncommon commands use an Icon + the text.
If you put a border around the button as a whole it should tie the icons / text together nicely and show it's still a button. You could also do some hover effects.
Since you can't do a dropdown menu (or similar techniques like clicking a button to generate a secondary menu). The best I can think of is what Prescott did or showing an area of buttons that are grouped in such a way to make it easy for the user to know which section their button should be in.
I would start by changing some of the longer labels. At a minimum, "Application Loading" could be abbreviated "App Loading." What's another (shorter) way to say "Quick File Transfer"?
You could also group the buttons into tabs (i.e. make it a ribbon). That might work particularly well if different classes of users tend to use different, non-overlapping sets of buttons.
Numerous options:
Group and labeling. Any time you have more than eight commands, you should divide the menu items into semantic groups of about four to help the user scan for the command they want. Labeling the groups also helps the scan and can make the menu more compact. For example, Instead of VDS Ping and VDS List, Have a group labeled “VDS” with “Ping” and “List” menu items. You’ve one less word to fit in (two if you put the label above it’s associated menu items when using a horizontal orientation).
Pulldown menus. Nielsen is correct about avoiding the use of a dropdown menu for making commands. However, he’s clearly in favor of pulldown menus which look and behave like a menubar in a thick client app (Nielsen calls them “command” and “navigation” menus). I think you’ll find that there are several Javascript pulldown menus out there now, unlike back in 2000 when Nielsen wrote his post. You can fit 100s of commands in a menubar.
Sidebar menu. Arraying the menu items vertically and you should be able to fit 20 or more commands and you won’t have to shorten any command names to something user might not understand. If that’s not enough, consider a “menu bank” than combines the benefits of sidebar menu with the capacity of a pulldown menu.
Ribbon. If your commands fit into discrete tasks, where the user tends to stick to one task for a while, you can arrange the buttons on a tab control, with one sheet per task.
Command Overloading. Represent your data objects as selectable entities in your window and change your commands into more general operations, like Drill-down, Create, Copy, Move, Delete, and Link, that can be applied to various different classes of objects, thereby reducing your total number of commands. The user can select one or more data objects then select the desired command to act on them.
Work Area Attributes. Some of your commands may not be commands by settings or attributes. Remove them from the menu and represent them as data objects in the work area of the page (or another page, if they are rarely used) using controls like radio buttons, dropdown lists, and check boxes. This has the added benefit clearly showing the user the current setting as well as providing a means to change it.
Variants. For an internal app, you probably have formal roles and responsibilities that vary by work position. Include the user’s position in your model, and dynamically hide commands (and other controls and pages) that aren't relevant to that position.
What about a combobox and a Confirm button?
Or a simple dropdown menu?
Add a "Tools" or "Actions" menu bar, and stick rightmost 4 commands (or more) into the menu.
Would it be possible to implement a "most used" or "preferred" set of buttons (preferably for the user, but globally if necessary) and button to take you to the rest of the items if you need one of those?
You could group them (like the two 'vds' buttons) behind a single button that, when clicked pops a context menu with the individual icons.
It truly seems like what you're developing is a administration console which happens to present its UI through a web page, rather than something which I'd quantify as a web app. As such, especially given your statement that this is an internal use application, Jakob Nielson's advice regarding <select> tags being poor design need not apply.
For this particular set of assumptions, I think the better option is to imitate a system menu setup using one of the many CSS-based menuing designs possible.
Icons are terrible from a user experience stand point. A picture of a Floppy Disk doesn't un-equivocally mean SAVE. It means something to do with a Floppy Disk. A Floppy really, its 2010, SAVE on a web app means save to the server, how does a Floppy Disk even compute?
Here is an application that has had the same extremely usable interface for 10 years! And hardly any images for buttons, and it is one of the most productive applications in its category.
You know what ICONS stand for I ncomprehesible C ryptic O bfucsated N onsense S ymbol!
Also how do you internationalize an icon?
Drop-down lists, menus and combo boxes are all very common user interface elements. Users are accustomed to seeing these elements in native applications and sometimes web apps, but there are a few problems with them.
You have to aim the mouse. Some menus collapse when you mouse out, and some have submenus that you have to aim at to expand.
You can't see the options without aiming the mouse first.
These are the main things that trouble me, maybe other people notice other issues as well. I normally don't use drop-down menus at all if I can help it.
The problem is that I sometimes want to present a long list of options in limited space. Issue 2 is a sacrifice I'm willing to make, but I'm wanting to know if anyone has any tricks to make these drop menus easier to use. Maybe someone has invented a new style of list control.
I'm sure that if these types of controls annoy me, then they annoy users of my site more.
Hmm..one more thing which annoys me about the dropdown list is the inability to control their width as it expands with the text (or is their something which I am unaware of ?).
For an alternate, I think about a little popup which initially displays a list of available options in form of Alphabetic index and when the user clicks on an alphabet link, it displays the relevant options to select from. This will reduce the options to select from.
On the same terms, we can use ajax to build the options on the fly as user types in.
You could try something like Mac OS/X has for its taskbar, similar to the selection bar in YouTube. I think the common term is a bubble bar where small images animate larger as the mouse rolls over them, but shrink back down to such a size that all items are visible when the mouse is not over the control.
#Nrj
width='20px' will keep the collapsed drop down at a width of 20px. Problem is, Inernet Explorer shows the expanded item with this width also, while all other browsers i met so far will show you the full menu.