>On Wed, 19 Jul 2000, Khanh Tran wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Is there any way to "dim out" an already disabled button? I want to
>> enable/disable this button dynamically, I didn't want to
>remove it totally
>> from the form for consistency reason. But a disabled button
>looks just like
>> an enabled one, which could cause some confusion.
>>
>> TIA,
>> Khanh.
>
>The Palm style guide specifically tells you not to do this. What is
>consistent from the programmer's POV is not necessarily consistent from
>the User' POV.
>
>A greyed out button causes confusion. If it's not available, it should
>not be displayed. There's really no reason to have a greyed out button
>there. As long as your UI is simple, consistency should not
>really be a
>problem.
>
>Don't confuse your users just because you're used to something working
>like Windows. Windows has a bad UI too, and there's a reason WinCE is
>failing (they tried to carry the UI over to a handheld).
>Don't make the
>same mistake.
>
>--
>Brian Mathis
>Direct Edge
>http://www.directedge.com
>
I think in some applications, this might be alright...for example, a
toolbar. You don't want buttons on the toolbar magically appearing and
disappearing at "random" intervals, as you'd have to move all your buttons
around and re-update the screen each time a certain function was made
unavailable. I think Peter Epstein's suggestion about making the button
pop an alert is acceptable, but if you could use a gadget object, then
update the graphic on the gadget, you wouldn't have to move all the
buttons around each time a button becomes unavailable. Now, I've never
really been a fan of toolbars, as I think they're just screen clutter, but
some people really like them. Still, there really aren't any tooltips
in the PalmOS, so doing the alert thing, or displaying a simple popup form
for about 3 or 4 seconds could be quite effective.
I could also see a use for it if you had a really funky interface that
would look really odd with a gaping hole in it when the button vanished.
In this case, the programmer should really think about conforming the UI,
but then again, if there really isn't anything they can do... (maybe the
marketing department shot their mouths off or a boss really liked the
graying out bit/hated seeing white space on the form)
Still, you're dead right about the WinCE interface...maybe if someone were
making a joke mockup of WinCE (I've seen a few) they could make use of
some of those screwy Windows conventions...just as long as they weren't
making a WinCE emulator. <shiver>
-Rus
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