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The little down arrow confuses me. It is based on action rather than state. RRS feed

  • Question

  • The little arrow points down when the thread is rolled up, and points up when the thread is rolled down. This seems to be because the arrow button makes the action happen. IOW, if it is rolled up, the down button makes it rolled down. If the thread is rolled down the up arrow rolls it up.

    That confuses me. I am used to seeing buttons like that show the state of the thread. That is, when the message is rolled up, show a left arrow, when it is rolled down, show a down arrow. Or just use "-" and "+".
    Friday, June 5, 2009 4:11 PM

Answers

  • In Windows Explorer there is plus when folder is collapsed. That would be like there is downarrow when the thread is collapsed. I remember that in some styles there is a knob that points down when a branch is expanded and points to right when the branch is collapsed indicating the state of the branch. In that case the meaning state is more obvious, because the tree structure is showing. But in threads list there is only a list of threads. On the other hand, each thread has some info-lines about the thread, so someone might accidentally think that you could hide those infos with the arrow-button. Also the little triangle is a bit confusing, because it isn't actually an arrow. But I don't think that is a big problem.
    Monday, June 8, 2009 8:03 AM

All replies

  • In Windows Explorer there is plus when folder is collapsed. That would be like there is downarrow when the thread is collapsed. I remember that in some styles there is a knob that points down when a branch is expanded and points to right when the branch is collapsed indicating the state of the branch. In that case the meaning state is more obvious, because the tree structure is showing. But in threads list there is only a list of threads. On the other hand, each thread has some info-lines about the thread, so someone might accidentally think that you could hide those infos with the arrow-button. Also the little triangle is a bit confusing, because it isn't actually an arrow. But I don't think that is a big problem.
    Monday, June 8, 2009 8:03 AM
  • Good points.
    Monday, June 8, 2009 11:27 AM