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Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide Reference

Action (Choice Type)

Reference

Description

An action choice is a type of choice that invokes an action that does not require further specification of parameters for invocation of the action. Close and Copy are examples of action choices. Figure 1 illustrates action choices.

Figure 1. Action Choices.




View figure.

When to Use

Required
If an operation or action is to happen immediately after the activation of a choice, provide an action choice.

Guidelines

Required
When a user activates an action choice, immediately begin to perform the action.

Required
Provide access to all action choices through menus, push buttons, or both.

Required
Do not use an action choice to request further parameters in a secondary window; use a dialog choice instead.

Required
Do not use an action choice to temporarily display a list or menu; use a cascading choice instead.

Required
If an action choice can possibly refer to more than one control in a window, use the following rules to determine which control is affected:

  1. If the action can be applied to the control that has focus emphasis, apply it to that control.

    For example, if the focus is in a text-entry field and the user uses a shortcut key to invoke the Paste choice, paste to the text-entry field that has focus.

  2. If the action operates on a selection, apply the action to the primary selection when the following is true:

    1. The primary selection is in the window

    2. No editing operation has been done in any other control in the window since it was selected

    3. If the control with interacted emphasis is in the window and the action can be applied to it, apply it.

      The control with interacted emphasis is the last editable control the user interacted with, so, for example, if the user last interacted with a text-entry field, paste to that field.

    4. If the window has a main control and the action can be applied to it, apply it.

      For example, a drawing program might have a large drawing area and a small text-entry field for entering identification numbers. The drawing area is the main control; if the previous cases do not apply, paste to it.

    5. If none of the previous cases is true, then invoking the action has no effect except for invoking a warning message.

      6. Essential Related Topics

      For more information, see the Choice and Message reference pages.

      Supplemental Related Topics

      For more information, see the Cascading (Choice Type), Selection, and Value (Choice Type) reference pages.

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