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Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide Reference
Action (Choice Type)
Reference
Description
An action choice is a type of choice that invokes an action that does not
require further specification of parameters for invocation of the action.
Close and Copy are examples of action choices. Figure 1
illustrates action choices.
Figure 1. Action Choices.
When to Use
- Required
- If an operation or action is to happen immediately after the activation
of a choice, provide an action choice.
Guidelines
- Required
- When a user activates an action choice, immediately begin to perform the
action.
- Required
- Provide access to all action choices through menus, push buttons, or
both.
- Required
- Do not use an action choice to request further parameters in a secondary
window; use a dialog choice instead.
- Required
- Do not use an action choice to temporarily display a list or menu; use a
cascading choice instead.
- Required
- If an action choice can possibly refer to more than one control in a
window, use the following rules to determine which control is affected:
- If the action can be applied to the control that has focus
emphasis, apply it to that control.
For example, if the focus is in a text-entry field and the user
uses a shortcut key to invoke the Paste choice, paste to the text-entry
field that has focus.
- If the action operates on a selection, apply the action to the
primary selection when the following is true:
- The primary selection is in the window
- No editing operation has been done in any other control
in the window since it was selected
- If the control with interacted emphasis is in the window and the
action can be applied to it, apply it.
The control with interacted emphasis is the last editable control
the user interacted with, so, for example, if the user last interacted
with a text-entry field, paste to that field.
- If the window has a main control and the action can be applied to
it, apply it.
For example, a drawing program might have a large drawing area and
a small text-entry field for entering identification numbers. The
drawing area is the main control; if the previous cases do not apply,
paste to it.
- If none of the previous cases is true, then invoking the action
has no effect except for invoking a warning message.
Essential Related Topics
For more information, see the Choice and Message reference pages.
Supplemental Related Topics
For more information, see the Cascading (Choice Type), Selection, and
Value (Choice Type) reference pages.
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