Re: Dynamically Displaying Help Icon
Jim Duffy wrote: I want the icon to show if a field in my DB has a string within it. One the user taps it, I want to take them to a custom dialog to show the record contents instead of popping up the standard Tips dialog. Since the i icon normally brings up help, rather than details, you may confuse your users. I'd suggest a different icon or a text button. Also, Palm users are not accustomed to UI elements appearing and disappearing, so you're sure to get support calls from people who can't find this button, because they haven't filled in the field yet. -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Dynamically Displaying Help Icon
Well, the software I'm doing is for enterprise customers.. The PDA's used run only my software and the user base are mainly mechanical engineers who barely know what a PDA is. P. Douglas Reeder, aka Skapti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim Duffy wrote: I want the icon to show if a field in my DB has a string within it. One the user taps it, I want to take them to a custom dialog to show the record contents instead of popping up the standard Tips dialog. Since the i icon normally brings up help, rather than details, you may confuse your users. I'd suggest a different icon or a text button. Also, Palm users are not accustomed to UI elements appearing and disappearing, so you're sure to get support calls from people who can't find this button, because they haven't filled in the field yet. -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Dynamically Displaying Help Icon
Well, the software I'm doing is for enterprise customers.. The PDA's used run only my software and the user base are mainly mechanical engineers who barely know what a PDA is. Nonetheless, sticking with convention is a good thing. In this case I think it's also going to be much easier to deal with your own icon/button/whatever As a user I find icons on Palm apps annoying. MeTRO for example, is a great app, and I use it a lot, but the icons suck - buttons with text would have been much clearer. In your case I don't think the i icon is going to convey to the users that they might want to tap it. Cheers, Jim Cooper _ Jim Cooper[EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype : jim.cooper Tabdee Ltdhttp://www.tabdee.ltd.uk TurboSync - Connecting Delphi to your Palm _ -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Re: Dynamically Displaying Help Icon
On Apr 13, 2006, at 12:32 PM, Jim Duffy wrote: Well, the software I'm doing is for enterprise customers.. The PDA's used run only my software and the user base are mainly mechanical engineers who barely know what a PDA is. P. Douglas Reeder, aka Skapti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Jim Duffy wrote: I want the icon to show if a field in my DB has a string within it. One the user taps it, I want to take them to a custom dialog to show the record contents instead of popping up the standard Tips dialog. Since the i icon normally brings up help, rather than details, you may confuse your users. I'd suggest a different icon or a text button. Also, Palm users are not accustomed to UI elements appearing and disappearing, so you're sure to get support calls from people who can't find this button, because they haven't filled in the field yet. Since your details button is enabled/disabled by a field, you want the button and field right next to each other, enclosed by a border, to show their connection. I recommend, when no details are available and the user taps the details button, you show an alert concisely stating what the user needs to do to make details available. If you must disable the button, make it a graphic button, and change the bitmap to a greyed-out bitmap when disabled. (Palm OS does not directly support greyed-out UI elements). These are all straightforward to program, using well documented API. While there is no support for borders as such, you just need to draw a rectangle using low-level draw commands. -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
Dynamically Displaying Help Icon
Hi All, Does anyone have suggestions on how one could dynamically display the help icon on a form? I'm referring to the 'i' icon that shows up in the upper right area of a toolbar if a help string resource is associated to the form. I want the icon to show if a field in my DB has a string within it. One the user taps it, I want to take them to a custom dialog to show the record contents instead of popping up the standard Tips dialog. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance... Jim -- For information on using the PalmSource Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/forums/
