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Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide Reference

List Box (Control)

Reference

Description

A list box is a control that contains a list of items that a user can select.

Figure 39. List Box.




View figure.

When to Use

Recommended
Use a list box to display a list of items in which the number of items may vary. Items may either be choices, or they may identify objects by their names.

Guidelines

Recommended
Display the items in a list box in an order that is meaningful to a user, such as alphabetic order, numeric order, chronological order, or some other order. For example, display modem baud rates in numeric order.

Required
When the cursor is on a list item that labels a viewable object, make presenting that object the default action.

Required
Design list boxes with either a single, browse, multiple, or extended selection model.

Recommended
Provide first-letter cursor navigation in a list box.

Required
In a scrollable list box, do not allow the cursor to wrap.

Required
Display the active cursor as an element cursor on the appropriate list item.

Required
When the user presses ^ or V, navigate to the previous and next items in the list box, respectively.

Required
If a list box can be scrolled horizontally, make it a tab group.

Required
If a list box can be scrolled horizontally, then when focus is in the list box, allow < and > to scroll left and right by one character width, and Ctrl < and Ctrl > to scroll left and right by a larger amount.

Recommended
Design a list box to be a tab group.

Required
Provide the list box with an area for presenting a list of labels as items.

Required
Provide vertical scroll bars when some of the list items are not visible in the list box.

Required
Arrange the list items vertically.

Required
Use different cursor visuals when the list box is in add mode from the one used in normal mode.

Recommended
Design a list box to be large enough to display a minimum of six list items at a time to provide context to the user.

Recommended
Make list boxes at least wide enough to display list items of average width.

Recommended
When a user increases the size of the window in which the list box is displayed, increase the size of the list box so that more items can be seen.

Recommended
When a user decreases the size of the window in which the list box is displayed, decrease the size of the list box so that fewer items can be seen, unless reducing the size of the list box will prevent the list box from displaying two list items.

Recommended
Provide horizontal scroll bars when items are wider than the list box.

Recommended
In normal mode, use a solid box around the item as the cursor visual.

Recommended
In add mode, use a dashed box around the item as the cursor visual.

Optional
If a window can be decreased in size so much that two items in the list cannot be seen, consider allowing the window to be scrolled or using a drop-down list box instead of a list box.

Essential Related Topics

For more information, see the Control and Drop-Down List (Control) reference pages.

Supplemental Related Topics

For more information, see the Combination Box (Control), Drop-Down Combination Box (Control), First-Letter Cursor Navigation, Label, Scroll Bar (Control), and Selection reference pages.

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