[TYPO3-core] RFC: #7986: Vertical aligned Icons in List-Module

Jeff Segars jsegars at alumni.rice.edu
Tue Apr 8 23:26:46 CEST 2008


Dmitry Dulepov [typo3] wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Jeff Segars wrote:
>> Most of the time when a toolbar icon is grayed out it is because the 
>> icon doesn't make sense in the current application state. The user can 
>> change this state, however, and cause the toolbar icon to become 
>> active again.
>>
>> One example of this would be a mail client with no messages selected. 
>> In this state, the reply button does not make sense but as soon as a 
>> message is selected, there's a proper state for the reply button.
>>
>> In list view, the toolbar icons are unique for a specific record 
>> rather than the entire application. The backend user cannot make 
>> changes that would cause these disabled toolbar icons to be activated 
>> (moving records in the list may be the one exception).
> 
> I think the last paragraph is not 100% correct. ~Icons~ in the List view 
> are not unique to row because all icons in one vertical row are the 
> same. It is ~icon state~ that is unique to row. Which bring us back to 
> ~state~ indication as I pointed.
> 
>> This means that the disabled toolbar icons don't indicate the current 
>> record state and instead are a static view of what functions that 
>> record supports.
> 
> Not necessarily. It may depend on permissions, versioning, etc. But 
> having disabled icons gives List view consistent look. Have you actually 
> looked at screenshot? It looks very messy. It is aligned, which is much 
> better than current state of List view but it looks messy. There is no 
> structure. 

Of course I've looked at the screenshot :)  I'm using it locally and do 
agree with many of the issues you raise.  I think the vertical alignment 
really highlights the missing icons and in doing that makes the user 
expect consistency where they shouldn't.

You mentioned grouping in one of the others posts and I think that's the 
key. If the icons are record and/or table specific (which I would argue 
they are), then the groupings of icons should be aligned but individual 
icons should not be.  The consistency comes from the fact that each 
record has a toolbar with its action icons in it, not from the 
individual actions that are available.

> Having disabled icons will give each row unified familar look 
> to every editor.

I think my fundamental problem with showing disabled icons is that most 
of the time a disabled icon doesn't have the possibility to become 
enabled by an end user action (not counting TS configuration changes and 
things like that).

If the backend user sees a disabled preview icon alongside other enabled 
preview icons, the logical question is what has to be done to that 
individual record to enable previews.  If the preview icon isn't present 
at all, then its logical to assume that preview isn't available to begin 
with.

Showing disabled icons would unify things, but I think it would also 
cause a bad mental model for the backend user.

>> Again, not sure exactly where I come down on this RFC but I think 
>> there are some distinctions between the icons here and a standard 
>> application toolbar.
> 
> You are right but these buttons still represent the toolbar :) They are 
> shortcuts to application functions, so they perform toolbar functions, 
> though for each record.

I guess that's the area where our viewpoints differ then :)  I see each 
table and/or record in list view as a unique item.  There's a high 
degree of similarity and they share the same underlying principles but 
can vary in what actions are allowed. If there was a top level toolbar 
that all records shared, I would feel differently but right now all the 
buttons are tied to the context of individual records.

I guess we should wait to hear from Jens and/or move this to the HCI 
list sense this is far more discussion about UI principles than the 
patch specifically :)

Thanks,
Jeff




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