Thanks, Mark. (And Nick). The lock icon is toggled with a simple click. The long press brings up additional options, and the lock/unlock menu item is included for consistency.
I actually DID hide it for a while, to prevent accidental activation. That didn't work out so well, for the very reasons you state. I ended up instead changing things so I could put in additional space, and lower the risk of accidental activation. Finally, first time in the app leads to a tutorial -- partly to address issues like this. Context menus are important here, because one of the goals is to provide quick and easy access to the platform's various options. The other role for the tutorial is to explain the PLATFORM behavior -- and also to give the user the option to change some configuration settings that might otherwise be confusing. So anyway, I'm trying to make it usable. I don't have any problem with changing it; I just don't want to change it without any idea of what I'm doing. Most of the functionality is available without the context menus. Thanks, guys. On Feb 26, 2:21 pm, Mark Murphy <[email protected]> wrote: > Bob Kerns wrote: > > If the user sees the state on the main activity (via the icon), then I > would go with your business partner's argument -- make the context menu > be the verb. The state is represented in one place (screen) and the > change is represented in another (menu). > > Though, to be honest, I'd seriously consider a ToggleButton rather than > an icon+context menu. Context menus are not discoverable, so you're > presumably relying on users to RTFM to find out how to lock/unlock...and > we all know how well RTFM works in practice. The only reason I'd "hide" > the lock/unlock operation in a context menu is if I were afraid of > accidental toggling, and that might even be better managed with a > confirmation AlertDialog or something. > > And, of course, since I'm no usability guru, take my advice with a > suitably-sized grain of salt. > > -- > Mark Murphy (a Commons > Guy)http://commonsware.com|http://twitter.com/commonsguy > > Android Development Wiki:http://wiki.andmob.org -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
