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Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide Reference

Slider (Control)

Reference

Description

A slider is a control that allows the user to choose a value from among a range of numeric values at evenly spaced intervals. The slider consists of a slider arm, slider track (also called a slider trough), and, optionally, a pair of arrow buttons and annotations (such as tick marks) that indicate legal values.

Figure 62. Sliders.




View figure.

When to Use

Required
Use a slider to allow a user to set a value from a range of numeric values at evenly spaced intervals. The values may either be absolute, such as temperature or size, or relative, such as a percentage.

Recommended
Use a slider to allow the user to see the current value relative to the range of possible values.

Guidelines

Required
Use a fixed-size slider arm whose center represents the value. Display the current value as a label adjacent to the slider arm, and allow it to be used as the source of a drag-and-drop transfer operation.

Required
Do not use a slider if the user cannot change the value. Use a gauge instead.

Recommended
Use tick marks to represent legal values or the units of measurement. If there are a large number of legal values, use tick marks at regular intervals of legal values and/or use both major and minor tick marks.

Recommended
Where appropriate, allow the user to select or change the units of measurement. For example, allow the user to change the scale from inches to millimeters.

Recommended
Provide additional controls that can affect the slider setting. For example, provide a Reset choice.

Recommended
If adjacent pixels represent values that are more than one interval unit apart, provide arrow buttons to allow the user to precisely set the value.

Recommended
If adjacent pixels represent values that are many interval units apart and the exact value to be set is important to a user, provide a separate text-entry field in addition to the slider to allow the user to set the value precisely.

Required
When the user manipulates the slider arm with the mouse, either allow the slider to stop only at positions that represent legal values or assign the legal value to the slider nearest to its position.

Required
When the slider has focus, allow directional keys to move the slider arm one interval unit (not one pixel) in the corresponding direction. Allow directional keys augmented by Ctrl to move the slider arm multiple units in the indicated direction.

Required
If arrow push buttons are used, move the slider arm one interval unit (not one pixel) in the corresponding direction when the user clicks on one.

Required
The mouse and keyboard behavior of a slider should be identical to that of a scroll bar except that the interval between legal values is used instead of a one-unit scrolling increment.

Essential Related Topics

For more information, see the Scroll Bar (Control) reference page.

Supplemental Related Topics

For more information, see the Gauge (Control) reference page.

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