Re: [HIG] Multiple values in widget?

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Thu, 2002-07-11 at 20:45, Lars Clausen wrote:
> 
> Are there any HIG people around who could give input on how it's best to
> handle this kind of thing?  Ignore it?  Mark one object as 'master'?  Add
> some decoration to imply that a value is not the same for all selected
> objects? 

Eventually this ought to be covered in a section about property windows,
if anyone ever gets around to writing one :/   The HIG does currently
suggest what you should do for some specific controls though (e.g. check
boxes)--http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/draft_hig/controls-check-boxes.html ... basically you should use the widget's 'inconsistent' state if it has one.

For things like text fields, which don't have an inconsistent state, the
most common behaviour I've seen on other platforms is just to leave the
field blank.  If the user types a value into the field, this is then
applied to all the selected objects.  Likewise for lists and option
menus-- the selection is initially set to a "blank" item.  

There is then a question about what happens if the user enters or
selects a new value, then decides to re-select the blank item or delete
the value they just typed in.  Ideally the original values ought to be
re-applied to each selected item in this case, I guess.

So that would probably be my recommendation, unless anyone has any
better suggestions...?

Caveat: the HIG is still in draft format and none of the above has been
reviewed :)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum.benson@ireland.sun.com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems