Datasheet

Drag-and-drop desktop tools
Tools that actually look like the tools you may use in real life such as paintbrushes or magnifying
glasses, as shown in Figure 1.17, may be useful whenever they can be incorporated into your user
interface design, because this adds a natural and familiar element to your application. The tools
can be resized to appear large and cast shadows when used. For example, paintbrushes can contain
the paints on their tips, which might resize according to the user’s preference, and the tips of the
paintbrushes might bend as the color is applied. This provides an obvious benefit because users
can see the size and color of the brush precisely where they plan to apply it. Users don’t need to
look over to a distant tool palette to see what they’re doing.
Or you might provide your users with drag-and-drop tools that allow them to, for example, drag
items that they’d like to buy into a shopping cart, or to drag videos into their “favorites” lists.
FIGURE 1.17
A Zoom tool may become a more appealing and familiar tool when it looks like a magnifying glass and
even creates a shadow as it enlarges an area of the screen.
Visibility on demand
In many applications, the number of tools may be more than the user cares to see all at once. Some
applications, such as Blend, assign tools to toolbars that can be made visible by choosing them
from a menu. Another method might be to have the names of tools grayed out (as shown in Figure
1.18), but appear when you press a key or move the mouse over them. This could let the user see
what’s available and know where the tools will be when they are needed. Depending on your appli-
cation, whole groups of toolbars or other controls might appear when a single button is clicked or
key is pressed.
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Exploring New User Interface Techniques
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