C H A P T E R 6

Dialogs

Figure 6-5 A customized Open dialog (column browser not shown)

Open dialogs should support document preview and can support multiple selection if your application allows more than one document to be open at a time.

Saving, Closing, and Quitting Behavior

As described in “Naming Files and Showing Filename Extensions” (page 249), your application should pass in a filename extension as part of every filename. Users can control its visibility using the “Hide extension” checkbox in the expanded Save dialog; for more information, see “The Expanded Save Dialog” (page 107). Existing documents do not get extensions added to or removed from their filenames unless the user chooses Save As and changes the setting in the Save dialog.

Save Dialogs

An application that saves the contents of individual windows—which would be most text and graphics applications—should use document-specific sheets for its Save dialogs. In Aqua, the Save dialog has two states: minimal and expanded.

Clicking the disclosure button toggles between these states. If the user changes the state, the next Save dialog should open in the selected state.

Apple Computer, Inc. June 2002

C H A P T E R 6

Dialogs

The Minimal Save Dialog

In the minimal Save dialog, users can save changes to a particular document, name or rename the document, and choose a frequently accessed location to store it.

Figure 6-6 The minimal (collapsed) Save dialog

Disclosure button

The minimal Save dialog contains these elements:

■“Save as” text field for the document name. (Expert users can enter pathnames by typing “/” or “~” as the first character.)

If the document has not been saved previously, your application should put the default name (such as “untitled”) in this field, and the filename should be selected. If the user has chosen to make the filename extension visible, the extension is not selected.

If the document has been saved previously and the user chooses Save As, the Save dialog should open with the document name, highlighted, in the “Save as” field. The filename extension (if it is visible) is not selected.

■Where pop-up menu, containing Favorite Places (all folders in the user’s Favorites folder) and Recent Places (the five most recent folders the user opened or saved documents to). Your application specifies the default location, typically

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Apple Computer, Inc. June 2002

C H A P T E R 6

Dialogs

the predefined Documents folder in the user’s home folder. (For recommended default locations, see “Files” (page 245).) If the user selects another folder, the dialog should “remember” the user’s selection the next time the dialog appears.

■Save button (default).

■Cancel button. Dismisses the dialog and returns to the application’s previous state.

■A disclosure button. Clicking it displays the expanded Save dialog.

The Expanded Save Dialog

With the expanded Save dialog, users can save a document in a location not accessible in the Where pop-up menu in the minimal Save dialog.

Figure 6-7 The expanded Save dialog

Apple Computer, Inc. June 2002

C H A P T E R 6

Dialogs

Clicking the disclosure button in the minimal Save dialog displays the following:

■A column browser for navigating the file system.

■A New Folder button, which displays an application-modal dialog that asks the user to name the new folder, and then creates it.

■An Add to Favorites button, which adds an alias of the chosen folder to the user’s Favorites folder and immediately updates the Favorite Places list in the Where pop-up menu. The Add to Favorites button is always active.

■A “Hide extension” checkbox, which allows the user to control whether or not the filename’s extension (.jpg, for example) is visible. The “Hide extension” checkbox should be selected as the default (that is, filename extensions should not appear in user-visible filenames unless the user requests them).

If the user changes the state of the checkbox for a particular document, the next new document should match the last user-selected state, even after the user quits and reopens the application. The filename in the “Save as” field updates in real time as the checkbox is selected or deselected.

Don’t provide your own options for handling filename extensions; use the standard Open and Save dialogs. Carbon developers should set the PreserveSaveFileExtension flag when calling the Save dialog, and use NavCompleteSave to set the flag to hide the filename extension.

If you want to add a Format pop-up menu so that users can specify a document’s file format, place it between the “Save as” text field and the Where pop-up menu. The system creates a list of native file types supported by the application to populate the menu. You can supplement this list with custom types and specify the default format to show when the dialog opens. When a user changes a document’s type with the Format menu, the filename extension (visible or hidden) should change accordingly. Cocoa applications handle this updating automatically.

If you add other elements to customize the expanded Save dialog, they should appear above the Cancel and Save buttons. All custom elements should be visible in the dialog’s minimal (collapsed) state, below the Where pop-up menu. When the dialog is expanded, custom elements should appear below the New Folder and Add to Favorites buttons.

In default keyboard navigation mode, pressing Tab in the expanded Save dialog shifts the keyboard focus from the “Save as” text field to the visible columns, and then back to the text field.

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Apple Computer, Inc. June 2002