Chapter 6. Controls

Using Controls Effectively
Terminology
Sensitivity
Locked Controls
Text Entry Fields
Behavior of Return key
Behavior of Tab key
Spin Boxes
Sliders
Buttons
Check Boxes
Radio Buttons
Toggle Buttons
Drop-down Lists
Drop-down Combination Boxes
Scrollbars
Lists
Trees
Tabbed Notebooks
Status Indicators
Progress Bars
Time-remaining Progress Indicator
Typical-time Progress Indicator
Indeterminate-progress indicator
Statusbars
Frames and Separators

Using Controls Effectively

GNOME provides a set of controls, also known as widgets, which allow users to interact with your applications. Using these controls appropriately and not altering their standard behavior is important. This allows users to predict the effects of their actions, and thus learn to use your application more quickly and efficiently. Controls that behave in non-standard ways break the user's mental model of how your application works, and dilute the meaning of the interface's visual language.