Please see my comments below.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Johnson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, November 12, 1999 1:54 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: PopTrig w/1 item -- no drop-down triangle?
>
>
> > If a popTrigger's associated list only has one item in it,
> is the popTrigger
> > still supposed to display the little drop-down "arrow" (the
> black triangle)?
>
> Yes, popup triggers always have the arrow.
>
> > With 1 item in the associated list, I still get the little
> black arrow --
> > that is not acceptable. Am I doing something wrong here,
> or is this a
> > design flaw in the popTrigger control?
>
> Why is this not acceptable, and why would this be a flaw?
This is not acceptable because there is _no value_ in tapping on a dropdown
arrow for a list with only one item that is already being displayed. This
is a wasted tap, and that is very bad. If there is only one item in the
list, the user shouldn't be suckered into hitting the dropdown arrow and
still only seeing that single item. If, instead, there were no little black
triangle, then the user would go "Oh, I guess this is the only item in the
list so I'm not going to waste time tapping on it to see if I might be able
to select something else." Am I jumping off the deep end here, or does this
seem like a legitimate request?
For some background, this is a dropdown that is populated from a database
over wireless using CORBA as the user wanders around. The user never knows
whether to expect 1, 5, or 100 items in the list. Scott, it sounds a lot
like your app! Switching to a different item in this list causes a complete
redraw of about six other UI elements on the page to reflect the new
contents. This one trigger pretty much drives the whole form, come to think
of it. Our competitors on this app will eat us up if the end user has to
make too many taps on any form. One competitor named its company after the
# of taps it took to complete a transaction, for bragging rights. It's
brutal, man. After this project, I'll never think about taps the same
way...
> How would you propose to change this?
Let the UI, not the popTrig control, worry about it:
CtlShowArrow( false );
That saves me the trouble of jumping through hoops to accomplish this.
> Maybe this whole 1-item list issue can be safely ignored, and just let
> the user tap the trigger if they want to.
I wish it were that simple for our app, but to ignore this little flaw would
kill us. Again the problem is that if I'm a user and I see a dropdown
arrow, I expect to see more than one item in the list. There is great value
in knowing for sure there's only one item in the list for our application.
Looks like I'll just have to throw a label on top of the list. When there's
only one item, I'll just hide the popTrig, show the label, and
SetLabelText() it. Unless someone has a better idea?
Thanks for your response Scott.
Later,
-Jeff Ishaq
The Windward Group
