[ Previous |
Next |
Contents |
Glossary |
Home |
Search ]
Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide Reference
List Box (Control)
Reference
Description
A list box is a control that contains a list of items that a user can
select.
Figure 39. List Box.
When to Use
- Recommended
- Use a list box to display a list of items in which the number of items may
vary. Items may either be choices, or they may identify objects by their
names.
Guidelines
- Recommended
- Display the items in a list box in an order that is meaningful to a user,
such as alphabetic order, numeric order, chronological order, or some other
order. For example, display modem baud rates in numeric order.
- Required
- When the cursor is on a list item that labels a viewable object, make
presenting that object the default action.
- Required
- Design list boxes with either a single, browse, multiple, or extended
selection model.
- Recommended
- Provide first-letter cursor navigation in a list box.
- Required
- In a scrollable list box, do not allow the cursor to wrap.
- Required
- Display the active cursor as an element cursor on the appropriate list
item.
- Required
- When the user presses ^ or V, navigate to the previous and
next items in the list box, respectively.
- Required
- If a list box can be scrolled horizontally, make it a tab group.
- Required
- If a list box can be scrolled horizontally, then when focus is in the list
box, allow < and > to scroll left and right by one character
width, and Ctrl < and Ctrl > to scroll left and right by a
larger amount.
- Recommended
- Design a list box to be a tab group.
- Required
- Provide the list box with an area for presenting a list of labels as
items.
- Required
- Provide vertical scroll bars when some of the list items are not visible
in the list box.
- Required
- Arrange the list items vertically.
- Required
- Use different cursor visuals when the list box is in add mode from the one
used in normal mode.
- Recommended
- Design a list box to be large enough to display a minimum of six list
items at a time to provide context to the user.
- Recommended
- Make list boxes at least wide enough to display list items of average
width.
- Recommended
- When a user increases the size of the window in which the list box is
displayed, increase the size of the list box so that more items can be seen.
- Recommended
- When a user decreases the size of the window in which the list box is
displayed, decrease the size of the list box so that fewer items can be seen,
unless reducing the size of the list box will prevent the list box from
displaying two list items.
- Recommended
- Provide horizontal scroll bars when items are wider than the list box.
- Recommended
- In normal mode, use a solid box around the item as the cursor visual.
- Recommended
- In add mode, use a dashed box around the item as the cursor visual.
- Optional
- If a window can be decreased in size so much that two items in the list
cannot be seen, consider allowing the window to be scrolled or using a
drop-down list box instead of a list box.
Essential Related Topics
For more information, see the Control and Drop-Down List (Control)
reference pages.
Supplemental Related Topics
For more information, see the Combination Box (Control), Drop-Down
Combination Box (Control), First-Letter Cursor Navigation, Label, Scroll Bar
(Control), and Selection reference pages.
[ Previous |
Next |
Contents |
Glossary |
Home |
Search ]