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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: tristate-buttons...
From:       Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra () troll ! no>
Date:       1998-07-19 15:25:08
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Robert Schöftner <r.schoeftner@magnet.at>
> 	i would need some sort of tri-state-buttons for manipulation of
> hierachical data. e.g. a pushbutton should have three states: "checked",
> "unchecked" and "unchanged from default" (e.g. grayed out, but showing if
> checked or not).

That grayed-out appearance sounds like what Microsoft calls
"unavailable".  Qt implements it, I think:

	button->setToggleButton( TRUE );
	button->setOn( TRUE );
	button->setEnabled( FALSE );

See http://www.microsoft.com/win32dev/uiguide/uigui393.htm and
http://www.microsoft.com/win32dev/uiguide/uigui397.htm for pictures
and details.  But that appearance does not mean "default value".

I would be very careful about adding more appearance to push buttons.
A push button already tries to indicate whether it

	- is on or off (for toggle buttons)
	- being pressed down or not
	- can be pressed or not
	- has keyboard focus
	- is the default button (ie. enter means "press this button")

And even more.  It's a great deal of information for just a few
pixels, and adding more may end up causing more confusion than it's
worth.

--Arnt

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