Push buttons are not preferred in my situation. In fact, they may confuse
the user. This particular product is an extension of a Windows app and it
would be nice if the user saw the same control on the Palm that was
specified in Windows. Besides, push buttons will not format as well as a
standard radio button.
>Why? Depending on the situation, it may cause some user confusion to
>have a non-standard GUI object like this,
Why not? If I wasn't allowed to make additional UI objects, there wouldn't
be a gadget control. Radio buttons are not a non-standard GUI object, most
OSs with a GUI has them in one form or another.
>I just can't see a compelling reason yet to do this.
The compelling reason is familiarity and continuity between desktop and hand
held programs. Radio buttons are more a part of Windows than push buttons
and my users may identify with them more. There is an inherent problem with
push buttons, the don't intuitively say 'push me' I've seen more than one
program where I was unaware there was a push button present, I just thought
some of the text was high lighted.
Anyway, I'm not going to get into a flame war over whether nor not there
should be radio buttons in my app or in the Palm OS. This application
requires them, they are not included in the OS so I will have to make my
own.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, May 03, 1999 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: radio buttons
>Dave Lippincott wrote:
>> All references in the docs to radio buttons say to use
>> push buttons but I would rather use the real thing
>
>Why? Depending on the situation, it may cause some user confusion to
>have a non-standard GUI object like this, since the user will be
>accustomed to Palm push buttons for all "radio" functionality.
>
>One argument I see is that push buttons take up lots of room because of
>the full border around them, compared to a more compact stack of check
>boxes. If this is the case, then you could use small square push
>buttons in front of the text so it sort of looks like desktop radio
>buttons but still uses a regular Palm object:
>
> Favorite character:
> +-+
> | | Qui-Gon Jinn
> +-+
> | | Queen Amidala
> +-+
> | | Darth Maul
> +-+
>
>(The squares are a push button group. They could abut each other like
>normal push buttons or be slightly separated.)
>
>Or if you really desire to have a circle-with-dot style radio button...
>I just can't see a compelling reason yet to do this.
>
>-slj-
>
>
