On Tue, 13 Nov 2001, Rev Simon Rumble wrote: > Have a question to see if anyone knows what the standard behaviour > should be in a GUI application. I've seen both out there. > > You have a button. The label on the button changes each time you > click it. eg, let's say it changes a select list from [All] to > [Today]. Now the button could have two very different behaviours: > > 1) It shows the current state, ie when it says [All] that means all > the items are displayed. > 2) It shows what the button will do to the list, ie when is says [All] > it means it is currently showing just Today and when you click the > button it will display All. > > So what is the standard? Is there one?
It's a case of verbs vs state indication. You have to decide whether it's an indicator or a button. Dunno about standards but I tend to make buttons verbs because people ask the question "What does this button do?" more than "What's this button mean?" On web sites I tend to put the status next to the button but not part of it. Of course on a native X app it could have some sort of status indication built into the button. EG a raised look, a border, alternate colour but I'd limit this to simple on/off, yes/no situations. I'd say you could change your button to "Show All" and "Show Today" making them verbs, rather than "All Shown" and "Today's Shown". -- ---<GRiP>--- Web: www.arcadia.au.com/gripz Phone/fax: 02 4950 1194 Mobile: 0408 686 201 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
