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Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide Reference
Container (Control)
Reference
Description
A container is a control whose specific purpose is to display objects as
icons and allow them to be selected and operated upon.
Figure 9. Container.
The objects in a container may be viewed in two ways:
- Spatial view
- Icons are laid out in two dimensions, possibly with additional layout
constraints imposed by the application, and may be positioned (within those
constraints) by the user.
- Linear view
- The icons are laid out linearly from top to bottom, one row per icon. A
linear view may have one or both of the following characteristics:
- Detailed
- A detailed linear view provides additional columns in which various
properties or additional data associated with each object may be shown.
Each row then also contains the detail elements specific to the object
whose icon is shown.
- Hierarchical
- A hierarchical linear view allows objects that contain other objects
(such as directories, folders, or any object that can itself be viewed
as a container) to have its subobjects displayed in-line. Each row may
also contain a display control button (which cannot take focus) that
indicates whether the object's subobjects are displayed or not.
Guidelines
- Recommended
- When a container is the main control in a view, allow a user to choose a
spatial or a linear view through the View menu.
- Recommended
- When a container is the main control in a view, allow a user to determine
which details are displayed in a linear view and the order in which they
appear.
- Recommended
- When a container is the main control in a view, and it contains objects of
the same type as the object being viewed (using the container), allow the view
to be hierarchical.
- Recommended
- Provide an Include choice for a view based on a container.
- Required
- Based on a task analysis, allow a container to either support a single,
browse, multiple, or extended selection model.
- Required
- If you design a container so that the container as a whole can take focus,
then the following should occur:
- If the container has not had focus previously, initially moving
focus to the container places the active cursor only on the container
as a whole (not on an element within the container).
- If the container previously had focus, moving the focus to the
container places the active cursor on the element that was last cursored
when the container had focus -- either the container as a whole or an
element within the container if it still can be cursored.
- When focus is on an element within the container and the user presses
Ctrl Home, move the active cursor to the container as a whole. If normal
mode is being used, this should deselect all selected objects in the
container.
- When the user presses V or > and the active cursor is on the
container as a whole, move focus to the top-left element within the
container that can be cursored. For information on bidirectional and
vertical language, see Chapter 11.
- Required
- When a container as a whole can take focus, the following should
occur:
- If the user clicks the SELECT button in the background of the
container, move the active cursor to the container as a whole. If
select mode is used within the container, all objects should be
deselected.
- If the user clicks Ctrl SELECT in the background of the container,
move the active cursor to the container as a whole without affecting
the selection state of the objects within the container.
- Required
- When the container as a whole has focus, a transfer operation whose
destination depends upon the focus (for example, Paste) transfers into the
object represented by the container as a whole. If the elements being
transferred are not objects, the application encapsulates them as objects
where this is possible.
- Required
- Design a container so that the container as a whole can take focus if
support for transferring objects to the container is required, unless the user
can switch to a spatial view by using a graphics cursor.
- Required
- In a spatial view, either use an element cursor or a graphics cursor.
- Recommended
- When displaying a spatial view of a container, provide a choice or choices
(for example, Arrange) in the View menu to lay out the objects in the
container.
- Recommended
- When using a spatial view to select multiple elements in a container,
support the area and touch selection techniques.
- Required
- In a linear view, use an element cursor.
- Required
- In a linear view, when the active cursor is on an object, pressing
V (except on the last object) moves it to the object in the row below.
- Required
- In a linear view, when the active cursor is on an object, pressing
^ (except on the first object) moves it to the object in the row above.
- Required
- In a linear view that is neither detailed nor hierarchical, pressing
> has the same effect as V, and < has the same effect as
^. For bidirectional and vertical language support, see Chapter
11.
- Required
- In a linear view, to represent an object use a small icon with the text
label adjacent to the image if both are present.
- Required
- In a linear view, do not allow the icon's text label to be cursored
separately from the icon image. If you want to allow the user to change the
label text, support direct editing techniques, property-editing dialogs, or
both.
- Required
- In a linear view, only the text label or the image of an icon needs to be
shown. However, whichever one is present should uniquely identify the object.
- Recommended
- Provide a Sort choice when displaying a linear view of a container.
- Required
- Support the range technique when multiple elements can be selected in a
container that uses a linear view.
- Required
- In a linear detailed view, either all detail elements take focus or they
all do not take focus. If they do not take focus, and you want to allow the
user to change the details, support direct editing techniques,
property-editing dialogs, or both. Detail elements are not selectable, even
when they can take focus.
- Required
- When multiple elements in a row of a nonhierarchical linear view can be
cursored (because detail elements can take focus in addition to the icon in
each row), follow the standard rules for directional navigation; that is,
< and > traverse through rows, and ^ and V
traverse through columns, with the objects treated as a single column.
- Required
- In normal mode, if keyboard navigation is used to move focus to a detail
element, deselect all objects in the container.
- Required
- If the user clicks Ctrl SELECT on a detail element in the container that
can take focus, move the focus to that element without affecting the selection
state of the objects within the container or having any other effect.
- Required
- If the user clicks SELECT on a detail element in the container that can
take focus, move the focus to that element. If select mode is used within the
container, all objects are deselected as well.
- Required
- In a linear hierarchical view, each object that contains subobjects should
be displayed with a display control button to its left. The button should
contain a value choice that may be toggled between an "expanded" and a
"contracted" state and should not take focus.
- Required
- When an object's display control button is in the contracted state,
the subobjects of the object should not be shown; in the contracted state,
they should be shown. All of an object's subobjects should be laid out
vertically immediately below the object, but indented to the right (only the
object column -- not the detail columns). If any subobject itself
contains subobjects, it should also be shown with a display control button
that indicates whether its subobjects should be displayed. For information on
bidirectional and vertical language support, see Chapter
11.
- Required
- When focus is on an object with a display control button and the user
presses Ctrl <, set the button to its expanded state. If the user
presses Ctrl >, set the button to its contracted state. For information
on bidirectional and vertical language support, see Chapter
11.
- Required
- If the user clicks the SELECT button on a display control button, toggle
its state and move focus to its corresponding object icon.
- Required
- Toggling a display control button (either with a standard keyboard or
mouse) has the following effect:
- If the display control button toggles from the contracted to
expanded state, the selection state of the objects in the container is
unchanged.
- If the display control button toggles from the expanded to the
contracted state, objects that are no longer displayed are deselected,
but the selection state of other objects is unchanged. If the active
cursor is on an element that is no longer displayed, move the cursor
to the object icon that corresponds to the display control button.
- Recommended
- In a linear hierarchical view, when the active cursor is on an object,
pressing Ctrl ^ moves the cursor upward to the nearest sibling object.
If there is no sibling, it moves the cursor to its parent object.
- Recommended
- In a linear hierarchical view, when the active cursor is on an object,
pressing Ctrl V moves the cursor downward to the nearest sibling
object. If there is no sibling, it acts as if Ctrl V were pressed with
the cursor on its parent object.
- Recommended
- When a display control button is in its expanded state, it should be shown
as a right-pointing arrow; in its contracted state, it should be shown as a
down-pointing arrow. For information on bidirectional and vertical language
support, see Chapter
11.
- Optional
- In a linear hierarchical view in which detail elements do not take focus
(or without detail elements), when focus is on a subobject, pressing <
moves focus to its parent object. For information on bidirectional and
vertical language support, see Chapter
11.
Essential Related Topics
For more information, see the Control and Selection reference pages.
Supplemental Related Topics
For more information, see Chapter 4 and the Data Transfer, Icon,
Include (Choice and Dialog), Object, Primary Window, Sort (Choice and Dialog),
Status Area, and View reference pages.
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