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| ==Definition==
| | {{ Moved To Community | KDE_Visual_Design_Group/HIG/Toggle Buttons }} |
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| A toggle button is a button which stays down when clicked once and goes up when clicked a second time.
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| ==When to Use==
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| Use a toggle button to indicate a '''state'''.
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| Example: A word processor should use toggle buttons to indicate the state of "Bold", "Italic" or "Underline" formatting.
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| [[File:Toggle-button-formatting.png]]
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| (Toggle buttons used in a rich text editor)
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| ==When not to Use==
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| Do not use a toggle button to indicate an '''action'''.
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| Example: A music player should not use a toggle button to implement a combined Play/Pause button. It should use a normal button and adjust the icon and label to represent the action which would be performed when clicked.
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| [[File:Toggle-button-media-player.png]]
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| ==Icon and Label==
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| There are two ways to label a toggle button:
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| '''First option: Describe the state which is reached when the button is down'''
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| In this case the icon and label should not change when the button is down.
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| For example a button to toggle the visibility of a sidebar could say "Show Sidebar". It should still say "Show Sidebar" when the button is down: it should not be changed to "Hide Sidebar". Think of the button as a check box: when you click a check box you do not expect its label to change.
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| If you want to change the button text to "Hide Sidebar" when the sidebar is shown then you should use a normal button, not a toggle button.
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| It is worth noting the label of a toggle button does not need to contain a verb, as long as there is no ambiguity. In this example the label can be reduced to "Sidebar".
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| [[File:Toggle-button-summary.png]]
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| '''Second option: Describe the current state'''
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| In this case the label will often include a passive verb. For example a button to lock or unlock an element would say "Unlocked" when it is up and "Locked" when it is down. The icon should also change to match the label.
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| [[File:Toggle-button-unlocked-locked.png]]
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