Preface

This manual contains guidelines that tell you what an OpenStep GUI should look like and how it should behave. It does not tell you how to use Interface Builder, Icon Builder, and the other tools to build an interface; the guidelines it contains are simply standards for the results you should achieve with the development tools.

Communicating with Your Users

Your OpenStep GUI should communicate with your users. There are different ways to measure this communication, but two points are particularly important.

• Users should be able to start up an application, look at its interface, and know what they can do (for example, "I can enter statistical data, chart it, and print the charts"). The guidelines explain how to achieve this kind of communication through the effective use of menus, windows, panels, and controls.
• The objects that make up your interface should behave in predictable ways. Users should be able to look at the menus, windows, panels, and controls on their screens and know how to operate them. The guidelines describe the characteristics your interface objects should exhibit to achieve this kind of communication.

Using the Application Kit Effectively

The OpenStep Application Kit (App Kit) supplies standard interface objects, such as panels, buttons, and menus, with their basic appearance and behaviors defined for you. You can include these objects in your interface and then complete them by adding some application-specific behavior. For example, a button's appearance and its basic reaction (it highlights when pushed, and so forth) are supplied, but you need to define what your application will do when the button is pushed.

Most features and options of an application can be represented in its interface by one of the standard objects supplied in the App Kit. Many of the objects in your own interfaces, then, will be App Kit objects that you complete with application-specific behavior. You can also develop custom objects of your own design that supplement those supplied in the App Kit.

The Types of Guidelines

To use the development tools effectively, you need to understand the relationship between behaviors supplied in the App Kit and the application-specific results you define--you need to know what has been supplied and what you will be adding. To help with this, User Interface Guidelines includes several types of standards or guidelines:

• The design principles that were applied to the overall OpenStep desktop, which define the appearance and behavior of the workspace, including application icons and the dock. Your application needs to conform to these principles and be consistent with the workspace behavior.
• Guidelines for the overall appearance and interaction of your application. These guidelines help you decide when to use standard windows, when to use panels, what kinds of commands should appear in menus, how many levels of submenus you can use, and so on.
• Descriptions of the objects supplied in the App Kit, which emphasize the characteristics built into them (how they respond to mouse and keyboard operations). These descriptions help you decide which objects will most effectively represent the features of your application.

• Specific conventions that should be followed when designing an OpenStep interface, such as the guidelines for keyboard shortcuts. These include "reserved" and "required" shortcuts, suggestions for when to use shortcuts, and guidelines for choosing the shortcut characters.
• Guidelines for using the standard objects supplied in the App Kit. These include objects such as the Open and Close panels and the File and Edit menus.

The point of view emphasized is how to choose the objects that will most effectively present your application's features to your users.

Who Should Use This Book

If you are developing an OpenStep application with a graphical interface you need to be familiar with the guidelines covered in this manual. The material is appropriate for those who have never designed or built a GUI and also for those who have experience with other GUI development environments.

Before You Read This Book

Before attempting to develop an OpenStep interface application, you should be familiar with the workspace, the dock, the File Viewer, the applications supplied with OpenStep software, and the general look and feel of the OpenStep interface. If you haven't used the OpenStep interface, the following end-user manuals will help you learn about it:

• QuickStart to the OpenStep Desktop
• Using the OpenStep Desktop

How This Book Is Organized

This manual presents interface guidelines in the following chapters:

Chapter 1, "A Visual Guide to the User Interface," is an illustrated introduction to the interface objects supplied in the App Kit.

Chapter 2, "Design Philosophy," explains the basic principles that apply to all OpenStep GUI's, including the OpenStep Workspace. Pay particular attention to the three paradigms for user actions.

Chapter 3, "User Actions: The Mouse and Keyboard," extends the concept of action paradigms, which was introduced in Chapter 2. It looks at the specific mouse and keyboard actions that operate interface objects. It covers both supplied and developer-defined characteristics.

Chapter 4, "Windows in the OpenStepInterface," covers the different types of windows supplied with the App Kit and the appropriate uses of each type. It also includes a detailed discussion of standard window interaction.

Chapter 5, "Panels," is a detailed discussion of panel characteristics. It also lists and describes the standard panels (such as the Save panel and the Open panel) supplied with the App Kit. These descriptions indicate what behavior has been implemented for the standard panels, and what remains for you to implement.

Chapter 6, "Menus," is a detailed discussion of menu behavior. It also lists and describes the standard menus supplied in the App Kit. Some of the necessary behavior has been implemented for the standard menus, and some, which is application specific, has been left for you to design and implement.

Chapter 7, "Controls," provides detailed discussions of the different control types and when they are most effectively used. It explains what behaviors have been implemented for each, and what remains for you to do. It also lists guidelines for any custom controls that you develop.

Chapter 8, "The Interface to the File System," describes the OpenStep conventions for using the Solaris file system.

Related Books

The following manuals cover the tools you use to actually build OpenStep GUI's:

• OpenStep Development Tools Guide, especially Chapter 3, which covers the Interface Builder and Chapters 15 through 18, which are tutorials that make extensive use of the Interface Builder.
• OpenStep Programming Reference, which covers the Application Kit and the GUI class libraries.

What Typographic Conventions Mean

The following table describes the typographic conventions used in this book.

Table P-1

Typeface or Symbol	Meaning	Example
AaBbCc123	The names of commands, files, and directories; on-screen computer output	Edit your.login file. Use ls -a to list all files. machine_name% You have mail.
AaBbCc123	What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output	machine_name%su Password:
AaBbCc123	Command-line placeholder: replace with a real name or value	To delete a file, type rm filename.
AaBbCc123	Book titles, new words or terms, or words to be emphasized	Read Chapter 6 in User's Guide. These are called class options. You must be root to do this.