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Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide Reference

Palette Area (Area)

Reference

Description

A palette area is an area within a window that provides a place to store commonly used groups of controls. A palette area may also be called a tool area if it contains only tools.

Figure 46. Palette Area.




View figure.

When to Use

Recommended
Provide a palette area when the user may want to interact frequently with specific functional elements of the application. For example, provide a tool palette area when a user may need to use various tools while interacting with a graphical control.

Recommended
Place palette area choices that are critical to the user's task in a highly visible location near the viewing area or elements associated with the task.

Recommended
Provide a palette area to hold action choices when the user may issue one of a small number of commands.

Guidelines

Required
Lay out the palette area as a control bar (for example, place it just below the window's menu bar) if it can apply to all viewing areas in the window.

Required
If a palette area applies to only one viewing area in a window with multiple viewing areas, place the palette area adjacent to the associated viewing area.

Required
If a palette area is placed adjacent to its associated viewing area, place it on only one side of the viewing area. Use two sides only when there is a large number of critical action choices that must be placed in a logical relationship to an associated fixed element in the view.

Recommended
If a palette area is distributed over two sides of its associated viewing area, use only one side in each dimension.

Required
If the user can customize a palette area or remove the action choices in a palette area, use a menu to provide access to the removable choices.

Recommended
If the user can customize a palette area and has removed all controls in it, remove the palette area.

Recommended
Allow the user to customize the palette area by allowing drag and drop.

Essential Related Topics

For more information, see the Control, Pointer, and Value Set reference pages.

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