I've just inherited an application where there is a form.
It opens, in the unlocked state it is like
If I click the padlock toggle button, the form will look like
The arrows at Up Position and Down Position are active control areas which when clicked make the Knife drawing go Up and Down; this is also reflected in the text over the "Above the belt text".
The only thing that the padlock button locks are those arrows. They come red when inactive and do nothing.
Questions:
The only tool types that will allow moving up and down are Knife and Pen. Will it be beneficial to put the locking control in the respective tab?
Is putting the arrows red the best solution to say that arrows functionality are not available? For me it seems a more "vivid" color than black (used when they are active)! Or not showing them at all? But this could mislead the user that the Knife and Pen Tool have not "Move Up"/"Move Down" functionality, which is false!
The padlock button suffers from the old problem of a toggle button with two states, in which you don't know where the drawing you see is the current state or the command that it will do when clicked (Please, share documentation on this). I've been tasked to add a label to it, but it seems to me that is not enough. If I do the labeling to be dynamic depending on the state, I will violate the principle of "visual inertia" (a minor annoyance).
Would it be better to change it to a checkbox and loose the graphic beauty of its icon?
The best way I think the problem I described on this point starting is solved is by using Android like toggle switch controls. As the Application has been built over MFC / Microsoft Visual C++, as far as I know, those type of switches are not available. If somebody knows more on this, I will appreciate the knowledge sharing.As the only thing the padlock locks are the arrows, wouldn't it be better they were nearer the arrows? If I put them near the arrows, then another problem begins: the pad lock will be only near to one pair of arrows, but it will really block the two pairs! How can I put the control seeming it locks the two pairs by becoming close of all arrows?
UPDATE
- After doing some higher priority things, I turned back here. Now, looking at the code, I discovered the Lock button does not lock anything. What it really does is to change the step of how much will move each time an arrow is pressed! To turn things even more strange, the Red arrows mode is a slower movement than the Black arrows mode!