As far as there being a "correct type of control", that's open to endless debate. :-)
>From what you describe, there doesn't seem to be a need for a call to action -- this was suggested simply to address the case that a selection MUST be made for things to work. Since this doesn't seem to be relevant in your situation, I would imagine you'd display a default option as the control label. The bigger issue is why you have an empty option at all. If that's a setting that a user can implement, the option should read something like "<no selection>" or "<empty>" or similar. If the empty value is something pulled from a table that can't be acted upon, there's no need to include it in the list of options. As always, I may be missing something. :-) Regards, Scott Rossi Creative Director Tactile Media, UX/UI Design On 7/2/15, 12:59 PM, "Peter Haworth" <p...@lcsql.com> wrote: >Interesting observation Scott. Makes me wonder if I'm actually using the >correct type of menu. > >For example, I might have an option menu which lists the names of tables >in >a database and another one that lists the columns in the selected table. >There's no "call to action" in that situation (other than to pick a table >and a column), so is an option menu the correct type of control according >to HIG? > >On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 10:00 AM Scott Rossi <sc...@tactilemedia.com> >wrote: > >> Often, this type of control has a call to action such as "Choose an >>item", >> as opposed an indication "No selection". It depends on the context of >> your control. If a selection is required in your set up, the call to >> action is more communicative. Otherwise, if "No selection" is a valid >> selection then that type of message should work. >> >> Regards, >> >> Scott Rossi >> Creative Director >> Tactile Media, UX/UI Design >> >> >> >> >> On 7/2/15, 8:47 AM, "Peter Haworth" <p...@lcsql.com> wrote: >> >> >Good point. For lots of reasons, the names of my option menus aren't >> >suitable for display to a user. Maybe the cleanest thing to do then >>is, if >> >the text of the menu is empty, set its label as suggested by Richard. I >> >like that. Most of the menus in question are under the control of a >> >behavior so this is easy to implement. >> > >> >On Thu, Jul 2, 2015, 8:28 AM Richard Gaskin >><ambassa...@fourthworld.com> >> >wrote: >> > >> >> Peter Haworth wrote: >> >> >> >> > So my technique of setting showname to false if the text is empty >>is >> >>the >> >> > only way round this? >> >> > >> >> > Also, you can have a label for an option menu with empty text. Try >> >> setting >> >> > the text of an option menu to empty, then use the message box to >>set >> >>its >> >> > label to some value. >> >> >> >> With the OS X HIGs not nearly as complete as they used to be I can no >> >> longer find the relevant section on this, but I believe most HIGs >> >> suggest that we avoid giving the user the impression the control may >>be >> >> broken by replacing empty items with some explanation of why it's >>empty, >> >> or perhaps a disabled item simply saying "None". >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Richard Gaskin >> >> Fourth World Systems >> >> Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the >>Web >> >> >>____________________________________________________________________ >> >> ambassa...@fourthworld.com >>http://www.FourthWorld.com >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> use-livecode mailing list >> >> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >> >> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your >> >> subscription preferences: >> >> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode >> >> >> >_______________________________________________ >> >use-livecode mailing list >> >use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >> >Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your >> >subscription preferences: >> >http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> use-livecode mailing list >> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your >> subscription preferences: >> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode >> >_______________________________________________ >use-livecode mailing list >use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your >subscription preferences: >http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
