[kde-guidelines] Styleguide: Check boxes

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On 01.06.2013 10:58, Heiko Tietze wrote:
> Am Freitag, 31. Mai 2013, 23:16:38 schrieb Thomas Pfeiffer:
>> Okay, I guess I not know what you mean. It just might be confused with
>> dependent controls in the same dialog. E.g. setting the checkbox for a
>> feature to "Activated" would enable the controls to configure it in the
>> same dialog.
> I added an example (Actually I've seen the "[ ] Print" feature recently: users
> check the box and the printer starts immediately to work)
>
> (It's not a good idea when I do the examples because the layout is not stored
> as xml/ui-file).
>
>> I guess people sometimes do that if they want to conserve space in a dialog
>> when something is deactivated. I just think it might help to make it clear
>> what should and should not be done.
> Okay, your sentence is in.
>
> |* Don't use a check box for more than 10 options, use a (drop-down) list.
> I'm not shure about this. Do we need to distinguish between single checkboxes
> and a list of cb (with a scrollbar). And why shouldn't a large list with a few
> selections be allowed as checklistbox? My alternative advice:
> * "For more than 5 associated options use a check box list." -> An example
> could be days of week
> * "Consider to apply a dual-list pattern if more than only a few selections
> have to be made."

Okay, now that I know what a checkboxlist is (yes, i could have googled 
that myself ;) ), I think that we need to make it very clear where it 
should be used and where not. I've seen those lists of checkboxes in too 
many cases where they should not be used, probably simply because they 
are easier to implement than the dual list pattern.

Even if only a few selections are to be made, the checkbox list can 
still be problematic if they are spread all over the list. If a user 
checks three boxes spread all over a list of 50, it's still very 
difficult to keep in mind which ones are checked. In this case, I'd 
strongly recommend using a dual list pattern.

Selecting weekdays or months works well of course, but that's only seven 
or twelve well-known items which are easy to remember.

An alternative suggestion for the guideline:
* For more than five options, use either a check box list or the 
dual-list pattern
    * Use the check box list if it is easy for users to know which items 
are checked at any given time, for one or more of these reasons:
       * There are no more than twice the number of options then are 
visible at a time
       * The options are well-known (for example months of a year or 
days of a week)
       * Usually the selected options are close to each other in the list
    * In any other case, use the dual-list pattern because it allows 
users to easily see which items are selected at any point, without 
having to scroll through the available options

You can never make it absolutely clear, but I hope this would reduce the 
amount of misuse of checkbox lists.