Tickboxes... Remixed!
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Tickboxes are good. Radio buttons are good. Tickboxes that work like radio buttons are not.
Someone should tell my colleague that... Everyone knows where they stand with "regular" tickboxes and radio buttons, no need for extra code on the radio buttons as they (in .net land anyway) just work, so it makes it a bit easier for everyone concerned.
And why did my friend create this tickbox-as-a-radio-button mashup? "Because I like the way they look better than radio buttons"
Needless to say, end user was suitably confused, and colleague shot.
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Haha - now try getting a spec from a client requiring 'single-select tickboxes' - i.e. a tickbox that behaves as a radio button... Especially where you can't actually get an answer from the client to your request to clarify whether he really wants a tickbox, or whether a radio button would do.
Do you implement the obviously common sense option, knowing that the testers will reject it as a defect, or implement the ridiculous option, with clumsy JavaScript and unnecessary server-side validation, resulting in a horribly confusing UI?
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Imagine my disappointment when I realized this thread wasn't about potential storage containers for my Ixodidas.
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@bstorer said:
Imagine my disappointment when I realized this thread wasn't about potential storage containers for my Ixodidas.
I quite literally ROFLd...in the onomatopoeiacal sense...
My co-workers looked on in disgust and disapprovement.
Screw them!
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Reminds me of the time a colleague and I had a purely theoretical discussion on the merits of coding multiple checkboxes to store their values in a single LONG integer and using binary math to decode/encode the values.......
And our (now fired) compatriot was eavesdropping on us and decided to implement it in his application.
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Not that I am advocating this, but:
<form>
<input type="radio" name="ex" value="A" style="-webkit-appearance: checkbox;" /> A
<br />
<input type="radio" name="ex" value="B" style="-webkit-appearance: checkbox;" /> B
</form>
downside: It only works in webkit derived browsers: safari, chrome, etc
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@alextm said:
Not that I am advocating this, but:
<form> <input type="radio" name="ex" value="A" style="-webkit-appearance: checkbox;" /> A
<br />
<input type="radio" name="ex" value="B" style="-webkit-appearance: checkbox;" /> B
</form>
downside: It only works in webkit derived browsers: safari, chrome, etcOh, good, three dozen people will be able to appreciate it, then.
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This is pretty horrible yeah. There is one form trick I approve of though. Using a bunch of tickboxes to replace a multi option dropdown.
Putting a small note below or above multi option dropdowns saying, "hold CTRL to make multiple selections" just doesn't cut it with your average user.I know there are other ways to get the same result, but personally I like the tickboxes approach best.
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@DaveyDaveDave said:
Haha - now try getting a spec from a client requiring 'single-select tickboxes' - i.e. a tickbox that behaves as a radio button... Especially where you can't actually get an answer from the client to your request to clarify whether he *really* wants a tickbox, or whether a radio button would do. Do you implement the obviously common sense option, knowing that the testers will reject it as a defect, or implement the ridiculous option, with clumsy JavaScript and unnecessary server-side validation, resulting in a horribly confusing UI?
It would be best to talk to the client and explain why this non-standard functionality is not the way to go. If they agree then get the requirement changed in the spec before it's signed off; if they stick to their guns then you should do what they ask.
As a professional it's good to try to steer your clients away from asking for something silly but, if they insist, what can you do...?
(I recently had to rebuild a form that a client had built themselves and had managed to break by messing around with it. The form was quite a mess with fields out of alignment and erratically spaced, some groups of fields were bounded by a labelled box and some not, etc. I rebuilt the form but made it cosmetically pleasing by properly lining up and spacing everything. When I showed them it the user insisted that I change it back to "the way it was" so I had to then go back into the form and deliberately make it ugly again.)
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@RTapeLoadingError said:
As a professional it's good to try to steer your clients away from asking for something silly but, if they insist, what can you do...?
Leave a flaming bag of poop at their office door?
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@morbiuswilters said:
@RTapeLoadingError said:
As a professional it's good to try to steer your clients away from asking for something silly but, if they insist, what can you do...?
Leave a flaming bag of poop at their office door?
With the bag made from the pages of the spec that request stupid things?
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@morbiuswilters said:
Oh, is it time for this year's Premiere Awards already?@RTapeLoadingError said:
As a professional it's good to try to steer your clients away from asking for something silly but, if they insist, what can you do...?
Leave a flaming bag of poop at their office door?
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@bstorer said:
@morbiuswilters said:
Oh, is it time for this year's Premiere Awards already?@RTapeLoadingError said:
As a professional it's good to try to steer your clients away from asking for something silly but, if they insist, what can you do...?
Leave a flaming bag of poop at their office door?
Actually, I was referring to the Joel Spolsky Award for Process Excellence.
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@alextm said:
Not that I am advocating this, but:
<form>
<input type="radio" name="ex" value="A" style="-webkit-appearance: checkbox;" /> A
<br />
<input type="radio" name="ex" value="B" style="-webkit-appearance: checkbox;" /> B
</form>
downside: It only works in webkit derived browsers: safari, chrome, etcSeems that -moz-appearance might be the equivalent for Bloatzilla family.
