Double-clicking radio buttons

re: Double-clicking radio buttons

Chump — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 18:41:08 GMT

What are mumbers and mumblers??
8)

re: Double-clicking radio buttons

Alan De Smet — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 19:03:05 GMT

A useful technique, but in the specific case of radio buttons I wonder how useful it is. If the only thing I can do in a dialog box is pick an action to be taken then hit okay, well, I'm really not saying what I mean. If I no longer want to Mumblize my Foobar, I click Cancel. If I want one of the other actions, I click the action I want, then OK. What's the point of confirming (via double-click or OK) at all? It's hardly a complex dialogue that I might make a mistake on. Instead, wouldn't it make more sense to have four buttons stacked on top of each other:

[Do not &obtain a mumbler now]
[Obtain a mumbler auto&matically]
[&Enter mumbler manually]
[Don't mumblize]

It's down to a single unambiguous click.

The best example of doing this I can think of was WinXP changing the logout radio buttons to normal buttons. I found that a vastly superior solution.

(Oh, and I suspect you meant mumb_l_er in your first radio button.)

re: Double-clicking radio buttons

Brian Friesen — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 19:49:14 GMT

I've never heard of double-clicking radio buttons before. For the most part I like these nuances in Windows (like holding shift when you active a context menu may reveal additional hidden items). But double-clicking a radio button sounds like it may be more of an annoyance. From time to time I accidently double-click a control. If this happens over a radio button and the dialog closes itself, I would find myself puzzled and annoyed.

re: Double-clicking radio buttons

Mike Dunn — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 20:32:03 GMT

That's funny... I've seen wizards where double-clicking a list does a Next as well (add new hardware is one, I think). But I wouldn't expect double-clicking a button to do anything special because double-clicking a button doesn't have special significance anywhere; whereas double-clicking a list is special (meaning "do the default action on what I just clicked").

re: Double-clicking radio buttons

Frederik Slijkerman — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 09:39:53 GMT

I have often seen less experienced computer users double-click on *everything* -- from buttons to what not. Sometimes I've tried to explain what you should single-click and what to double-click, but it actually seems that there isn't a simple rule for that. At least you should keep that fact in mind when designing new special double-click actions.

re: Double-clicking radio buttons

Centaur — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 10:52:11 GMT

Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1 is guilty of misapplying this idiom.

In the Add New Item dialog, there is a vast Templates list view on the right, and a relatively small Name edit below. Now I usually tend to first think *what* it will be, and next *what name* it will have. Occasionally, I double-click the template, at which point the validator complains that "<Enter name>" is not a valid name. Of course it is not; because I was just going to enter it when you interrupted me with your rude modal validation error message box. The double-click here supports the unlikely use case of entering its name first and deciding what it will be next.

re: Double-clicking radio buttons

GregM — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 16:21:49 GMT

Centaur,

Yeah, they apparently missed this part of the idiom:

Note that double-click as a shortcut for select-and-OK should be used only for dialogs or wizard pages where the only relevant controls are radio buttons (and the OK and Cancel buttons). If there are controls on the page other than the radio button, then you have to wait for the OK because the user might want to manipulate those other controls too.

I have done this before, though since it's with MFC, it's only one line of code:
ON_CBN_DBLCLK(IDC_COMBO, OnOK)
ON_LBN_DBLCLK(IDC_LIST, OnOK)
etc.

re: Double-clicking radio buttons

Brian Friesen — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 18:40:31 GMT

Frederik, you're so right. I laugh inside every time I watch my dad "drive" a computer, he always double-clicks items in the Quick Launch bar to start them. I guess for the non-savvy it's easier to double-click everything than try and remember which you double-click and which you single click.

re: Double-clicking radio buttons

TC — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 09:47:10 GMT

GregM said:

> double-click as a shortcut for select-and-OK
> should be used only for dialogs or wizard
> pages where the only relevant controls are
> radio buttons (and the OK and Cancel
> buttons).

Not so. Radio buttons are not the only control that you can click to choose an entry. List & combo boxes are other such controls. The only requirement should be, that there is only one such control on the page.

TC