Appearance and Content
The effectiveness of toolbars is increased by maintaining a level of consistency between different applications. The toolbar is one of the first parts of your application that a user will see the first time they run it, so by providing a toolbar that looks familiar to them, you can immediately make them feel comfortable about using your application.
As well as following the recommendations and examples given in this section, look at the toolbars in other well-designed GNOME 2.0 applications for guidance when deciding what— and what not— to put on your application's toolbar.
However many toolbars or toolbox windows your application offers, provide one main toolbar by default that contains a representative subset of the application's overall functionality. Many of the buttons on this toolbar will be the same regardless of the type of application.
For example, the main toolbar in an office application will nearly always have New, Open and Save as its first three toolbar buttons. Similarly, the first few buttons in a browser application should always include Back, Forward, Stop and Reload, in that order.
- Place only the most commonly-used application functions on your toolbars. Don't just add buttons for every menu item.
- By default, have your toolbars appear directly below the main menu bar.
- Allow toolbars to be turned on and off in your application's Preferences dialog and by using the menu item. If there is more than one toolbar, they are turned on and off by individual entries in the submenu.
- All functions that appear on your toolbars must also accessible via the main menu bar, either directly (i.e. an equivalent menu item) or indirectly (e.g. in the dialog).
- Arrange toolbar buttons in the same order and groupings as their equivalents on the main menu bar. In particular, always group sets of mutually-exclusive toolbar buttons.
- Don't add buttons for Help, Close or Quit to your toolbar by default, as these are rarely used and the space is better used for more useful controls. Similarly, only provide buttons for Undo, Redo and the standard clipboard functions if there is space on the toolbar to do so without sacrificing more useful, application-specific controls.
- Provide options to show toolbar buttons as text, graphics or both— see Figure 5-2 for the menus to use for controlling toolbar display. Also provide an option to return all toolbars in your application to the control center default for this setting.
- Allow users to configure toolbars to contain their own selection of commands, in whatever order they choose. Provide an option in the configuration dialog to return the toolbars to their default configuration.
- Save your application's toolbar position and contents as part of the application configuration, and restore them when the application is restarted.
- 5.1.1. Vertical Toolbars
- 5.1.2. Media Player Toolbars
5.1.1. Vertical Toolbars
In general, don't use vertical toolbars. The eye does not scan vertically as well as it does horizontally, groups of mutually exclusive buttons are less obvious when arranged vertically, and showing button labels is more awkard and less space-efficient. Also, some toolbar controls just cannot be used vertically, such as dropdown lists.
Only consider using a vertical toolbar if:
- the configuration of the application window means there would be a lot of wasted space if a horizontal toolbar was used instead, or
- your application would otherwise require three or more rows of toolbars to appear below the main menu bar by default. Note however that in this situation, the better alternative is usually to display fewer toolbars by default.
If you must use a vertical toolbar, ensure the user can configure it to appear horizontally if they prefer.
5.1.2. Media Player Toolbars
Many applications are able to play sound or video clips. For consistency, always present the buttons that control playback in the same order and with the same stock icons.
- Show separate Stop and Pause buttons. Do not change Play to Pause while the clip is playing.