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Toolbars and Icons and Drawers, Oh My
Three OS X interface goodies your program should be taking advantage of
Issue: 2.2 (October/November 2003)
Author: Toby Rush
Author Bio: Toby Rush is a music instructor, consultant, freelance programmer, web designer, husband, and dad in Greeley, Colorado.
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 9,918
Starting Page Number: 44
Article Number: 2221
Related Web Link(s):
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Conceptual/UsingHIToolbar/index.html
http://www.everydaysoftware.net/code/index.html
Excerpt of article text...
If users aren't using terms like "Aqua-tastic" and "Jaguar-licious" when they use your software, it may be because you aren't taking advantage of some of the new interface elements available in OS X. In this month's column I'm going to touch on three cool technologies that your program can use to give it a modern look and feel.
Toolbars
Anyone who spends more than a day using OS X gets to know the Finder's toolbars fairly quickly. These strips of icons and other controls that appear at the top of every Finder window provide a spot for commonly used tasks so they may remain readily available. They are not meant to replace menus; in fact, the Human Interface Guidelines state that every command available in a toolbar should also be available in a menu. Though this technology could easily have been a custom control specific to the Finder, it's actually a capability built in to every window on the Macintosh.
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