Combo box Horizontal Scroll

[Cheli via .NET 247]

Help! Need expertise.

Pocket PC screen is too small and I need to display long texts on my combo box, is there a way to add a property or to implement Horizontal scrollbars on Combo boxes?

If possible, can you please provide sample code and sample application.

Thanks in advance...

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

You need to think very carefully about your user interface design if you
think that you need to have a large number of items or very wide items in a
combo box. It probably means that your design is flawed. Think about
filtering the list in some way, based, perhaps, on a selected set of
options, search criteria, etc.

Paul T.

 

[mikeb]

What? Flawed? Because the descriptive items in a listbox are long? The
width of a pda screen doesn't support many characters, especially if your
listbox isn't flush to the left edge of the form - which hopefully they
aren't. Extra characters in a list means NOTHING in terms of a flawed
design. It means this person is trying to make the program easy for the
users.

If he had many ITEMS in a list, I can see that being a design problem. But
longer, descriptive, items in a listbox? Naw. I'd like to see more
developers help their users out this way -- cryptic acronymic code names
help the programmer feel smart, it certainly doesn't help the user.

Sorry, this post wasn't much help to your horizontal scroll question - but
hopefully you will get an answer. It would be a very helpful thing to have.

Mike

You need to think very carefully about your user interface design if you
think that you need to have a large number of items or very wide items in a
combo box. It probably means that your design is flawed. Think about
filtering the list in some way, based, perhaps, on a selected set of
options, search criteria, etc.

Paul T.

 

[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

I agree. Full paragraph list items should be the norm. I love scrolling
left and right, it makes for a joyous user experience.

-Chris

What? Flawed? Because the descriptive items in a listbox are long? The
width of a pda screen doesn't support many characters, especially if your
listbox isn't flush to the left edge of the form - which hopefully they
aren't. Extra characters in a list means NOTHING in terms of a flawed
design. It means this person is trying to make the program easy for the
users.

If he had many ITEMS in a list, I can see that being a design problem. But
longer, descriptive, items in a listbox? Naw. I'd like to see more
developers help their users out this way -- cryptic acronymic code names
help the programmer feel smart, it certainly doesn't help the user.

Sorry, this post wasn't much help to your horizontal scroll question - but
hopefully you will get an answer. It would be a very helpful thing to have.

Mike

You need to think very carefully about your user interface design if you
think that you need to have a large number of items or very wide items

in

a
combo box. It probably means that your design is flawed. Think about
filtering the list in some way, based, perhaps, on a selected set of
options, search criteria, etc.

Paul T.

 

[Wapiti]

Yah Chris, thats EXACTLY what I implied... full paragraph per item, no, I
meant a full freaking novel on each line.

Why be an ass? (I changed that from "what an ass")

I agree. Full paragraph list items should be the norm. I love scrolling
left and right, it makes for a joyous user experience.

-Chris

 

[chora]

Maybe a tooltip look-alike solution on Mouse Over ?

 

[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

At this point we could go into a long diatribe about standardized user
interface models, examples of successful UIs that somehow manage to work
without this feature, usability studies, the expectation differences with
Pocket PC applications and a whole host of other items, but there's not a
lot of point. It's like argiuing with someone who's trying to stuff a
thousand items into a list and wants to fix the 'slowness'.

The entire point of this discussion, in the billions of flavors it seems to
have taken over the years, is that this is a device with limited real estate
and limited resources. Trying to take the desktop model for a UI and port
it to the device is a quick road to failure and user dissatisfaction. Most
of us make recommendations not because we feel some superiority, but becasue
we've been there and done that. We've all probably written UI failures by
trying to do the same thing other newcomers to the mobile space are trying
to do, and excuse us if we try to prevent others from doing the same thing.
I certainly don't apologize for that.

-Chris

Yah Chris, thats EXACTLY what I implied... full paragraph per item, no, I
meant a full freaking novel on each line.

Why be an ass? (I changed that from "what an ass")

I agree. Full paragraph list items should be the norm. I love scrolling
left and right, it makes for a joyous user experience.

-Chris

What? Flawed? Because the descriptive items in a listbox are long? The
width of a pda screen doesn't support many characters, especially if your
listbox isn't flush to the left edge of the form - which hopefully they
aren't. Extra characters in a list means NOTHING in terms of a flawed
design. It means this person is trying to make the program easy for the
users.

If he had many ITEMS in a list, I can see that being a design problem. But
longer, descriptive, items in a listbox? Naw. I'd like to see more
developers help their users out this way -- cryptic acronymic code names
help the programmer feel smart, it certainly doesn't help the user.

Sorry, this post wasn't much help to your horizontal scroll question -
but
hopefully you will get an answer. It would be a very helpful thing to have.

Mike

"Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" <ptobey no spam AT no instrument no spam DOT com>
wrote in message You need to think very carefully about your user interface design if
you
think that you need to have a large number of items or very wide

items
in

a
combo box. It probably means that your design is flawed. Think about
filtering the list in some way, based, perhaps, on a selected set of
options, search criteria, etc.

Paul T.

Help! Need expertise.

Pocket PC screen is too small and I need to display long texts on my
combo
box, is there a way to add a property or to implement Horizontal
scrollbars on Combo boxes?

If possible, can you please provide sample code and sample application.

Thanks in advance...

 

[Wapiti]

Chris, I"ve been developing handheld applications for over 10 years.
Started with IRL, PPG, and plenty of the other of the proprietary languages
that were available - the only thing available - for handheld development
at the time. Then C, then VB full version, when they tried putting Windows
full blown onto the devices. ouch.

I know the ins and outs of handheld development - every one of my apps out
there is still in use today. I attribute that to their usabliity - because
as we all know, there are easier ways to develop for these things out there
today - but they choose to stay with my apps because they work and the users
love working with them.

So, back to the horizontal scroll on the listbox. I doubt, and I'm sure
you'll agree, that this person intended to write a paragraph. There are
times when users just don't want/need to interpret vague codes - but would
rather see human understandable words. I commend folks for attempting this.

I've gone so far as building another column into pc based databases -
specifically for exporting shorter descriptive texts handhelds for drop down
lists. Because, you put a label on a form, along side your listbox, and
room is at a premium for display. You know that.

Rather than a scrollbar, I'd rather see the api method I've used in VB6 in
the PC model, to expand widthwise, the size of the dropdown area of a
listbox. This would be more ideal. Horizontal scrollbars, I admit, would
be intrusive. But no more than cryptic listbox items.

I haven't tried to develop a listbox using this method of expanding the
default width -but I'd like to see if its available.

-Mike

At this point we could go into a long diatribe about standardized user
interface models, examples of successful UIs that somehow manage to work
without this feature, usability studies, the expectation differences with
Pocket PC applications and a whole host of other items, but there's not a
lot of point. It's like argiuing with someone who's trying to stuff a
thousand items into a list and wants to fix the 'slowness'.

The entire point of this discussion, in the billions of flavors it seems
to
have taken over the years, is that this is a device with limited real
estate
and limited resources. Trying to take the desktop model for a UI and port
it to the device is a quick road to failure and user dissatisfaction.
Most
of us make recommendations not because we feel some superiority, but
becasue
we've been there and done that. We've all probably written UI failures by
trying to do the same thing other newcomers to the mobile space are trying
to do, and excuse us if we try to prevent others from doing the same
thing.
I certainly don't apologize for that.

-Chris

Yah Chris, thats EXACTLY what I implied... full paragraph per item, no, I
meant a full freaking novel on each line.

Why be an ass? (I changed that from "what an ass")

I agree. Full paragraph list items should be the norm. I love
scrolling
left and right, it makes for a joyous user experience.

-Chris


What? Flawed? Because the descriptive items in a listbox are long? The
width of a pda screen doesn't support many characters, especially if your
listbox isn't flush to the left edge of the form - which hopefully
they
aren't. Extra characters in a list means NOTHING in terms of a
flawed
design. It means this person is trying to make the program easy for the
users.

If he had many ITEMS in a list, I can see that being a design problem.
But
longer, descriptive, items in a listbox? Naw. I'd like to see more
developers help their users out this way -- cryptic acronymic code names
help the programmer feel smart, it certainly doesn't help the user.

Sorry, this post wasn't much help to your horizontal scroll question -
but
hopefully you will get an answer. It would be a very helpful thing to
have.

Mike

"Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]" <ptobey no spam AT no instrument no spam DOT com>
wrote in message You need to think very carefully about your user interface design if
you
think that you need to have a large number of items or very wide items
in
a
combo box. It probably means that your design is flawed. Think about
filtering the list in some way, based, perhaps, on a selected set of
options, search criteria, etc.

Paul T.

Help! Need expertise.

Pocket PC screen is too small and I need to display long texts on my
combo
box, is there a way to add a property or to implement Horizontal
scrollbars on Combo boxes?

If possible, can you please provide sample code and sample
application.

Thanks in advance...