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| Combo boxes (also known as a dropdown box) offer the user a choice of two or more mutually exclusive options. Their disadvantage compared to related controls like radio buttons or lists is that the options are not visible without further interaction.
| | {{ Moved To Community | KDE_Visual_Design_Group/HIG/Combo Box }} |
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| === Guidelines ===
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| * For 3 or fewer options, use a set of [[Projects/Usability/HIG/Radio_Buttons|radio buttons]].
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| * For 4 to 10 options, use a combo box instead of radio buttons.
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| * For more than 10 options, use a list.
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| * Label the combo box with a descriptive label to the left of the combo box.
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| * Use sentence style capitalization for the label and the options.
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| * If activating a choice affects the appearance or the enabled state of other controls, place them next to the combo box or below the combo box with a space indentation.
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| * Make sure the items are easily accessible via keyboard by moving distinctive letters to the beginning of each option. For example, in a list of countries on continents, write ''Germany (Europe)'' instead of ''Europe/Germany''.
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| * Don't initiate an action when the user selects an item from a drop-down list.
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| * Don't forget to create a buddy relation so access keys are assigned.
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| Controls that show the options without further user interaction are preferable, except for the following cases:
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| * the list of options may change over time,
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| * the contents are obvious from the label and the one selected item, for example ''Month'' and ''January''
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| * the combo box is part of a related sequence of controls. For example, to set a reminder to ring 5 hours or minutes before or after an event.
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