GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 550920
a new view to a combobox
Last modified: 2012-01-28 22:08:25 UTC
Here's a wish for the wishlist: I'd like to have a combobox widget that didn't show a list -- but rather cycled through the elements with every click. The little up and down arrow icon that shows that this is a combobox, would be horizontal rather than vertical. Obviously this doesn't jive with the concept of entering new data. If I had to pick a name for this object, I'd call it a cyclecombobox.
Created attachment 118057 [details] video of a cyclecombobox in action It's in ogg theora format.
On my first impression I have two comments: - This doesn't look very discoverable. - GtkComboBox already lets you cycle, with a mouse wheel.
I think it's meant to be used with a small number of different states. It fits in the conceptual space between a two-state togglebutton, and a ten-state combobox. This makes it easily discoverable in my book. Also, scrolling using the mousewheel on a combobox is much more tricky for a beginner; clicking many times is easier.
(In reply to comment #3) > I think it's meant to be used with a small number of different states. It fits > in the conceptual space between a two-state togglebutton, and a ten-state > combobox. This makes it easily discoverable in my book. What makes it hard to discover is for instance the fact that combo boxes on virtually all platforms open some kind of popup window. > Also, scrolling using the mousewheel on a combobox is much more tricky for a > beginner; clicking many times is easier. Using a wheel is not what you start with as a novice, no doubt. It as an advanced facility for a power user who is rather determined in what he wants and knows what entries the comb box contains beforehand. Clicking repeatedly may seem easy but it is in fact very tedious, regardless of the experience of the user. And even more importantly it is very hard to figure out the possible states of such a combo boxbecause you actually need to click through all items at least twice in order to know what it contains.
> What makes it hard to discover is for instance the fact that combo boxes on > virtually all platforms open some kind of popup window. Well it's not really a combobox is it? The name or even the implementation doesn't detract from the usefulness of the object. The horizontal arrows indicate that it's not going to behave like a combobox. > Clicking repeatedly may seem easy but it is in fact very tedious, regardless of > the experience of the user. And even more importantly it is very hard to figure > out the possible states of such a combo boxbecause you actually need to click > through all items at least twice in order to know what it contains. Imagine many combobox objects in a column, which each combobox holds the same limited set of values. Repeatedly clicking, holding, and dragging down to the desired item is very tedious. Alternatively I could have a set of radiobuttons, but that would take up a large amount of space. This is where this new cycling construct fits in. It takes up a little space, and it's easier than navigating pulldown-list after pulldown-list. After the initial discovery of the button states, the user is inevitably trained to remember "i just have to click 3 times", to get the desired result for the rest of the objects in the columns. I disagree that you have to click through all of the items at least twice. Everybody I know would stop when they reached the beginning again -- and as long as there are only a few states, then I don't think it is tedious at all.
I believe what we have here is a duplicate of bug 1867 !
Closing as duplicate. The other option would have been WONTFIX. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1867 ***