Imperative and Selection Gizmos
William H. Bowers
Topics
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Gizmos
Six Classes of Gizmos
Derived Gizmos
Four Basic Flavors
Imperative Gizmos
Selection Gizmos
William H. Bowers
Gizmos
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aka Microsoft controls
Primary building block for GUIs
Proliferate in dialog boxes
Can be overused by programmers
William H. Bowers
Gizmos
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Easy to use
Difficult to create new ones
Originally (Win 3.1) linked to user.exe
Now delivered in DLL’s
William H. Bowers
Six Classes of Gizmos
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Buttons
Edit fields
Static fields
List boxes
Scrollbars
Combo boxes
William H. Bowers
Derived Gizmos
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Labels
Group boxes
Radio buttons
Checkboxes
Frames
William H. Bowers
Four Basic Flavors
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Imperative
Selection
Entry
Display
William H. Bowers
Imperative Gizmos
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Verbs or actions
Menu items are imperative gizmos
Push buttons
Hotspots
Use ToolTips to explain functionality
William H. Bowers
Selection Gizmos
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Nouns or objects
No action associated with selection gizmo
List box
Check box
Toggle buttons
Should buttons indicate the current state?
William H. Bowers
Selection Gizmos
• Mutually exclusive buttons
• Combination dropdown and button
• List boxes (aka pick lists)
– Single or multiple selection
– Drag and drop between list boxes
– Avoid horizontal scrolling
William H. Bowers
Selection Gizmos
• Hierarchical list view
• Combo box
– Select from list
– Enter text
– Single selection only
William H. Bowers
Questions & Discussion
William H. Bowers