I have a quick question about buttons that toggle between two states. (Think Play/Pause, or Shuffle/Regular Play.) As the title says, should the toggle show it's current state or the state to which...
It should show the current state, just like a checkbox shows if its option is enabled, an input box its current value etc. Everything else doesn’t make sense.
Without seeing an example I would’ve said a button (actual button, not a checkbox or slider) should show the future state. If a button says “Cancel” I would expect the state to go from a pending state to a cancelled state. Same with a button that says “Submit”. So if it’s some kind of toggle, like play/pause, I would think hitting ⏸️ means I’m currently playing and I want to pause.
Buttons don’t show what is currently happening, but what action, with the provided user input via toggles, input boxes, checkboxes if any, should be taken. In your example, your Cancel Button should Cancel the transaction.
@BrianTheeBiscuiteer@DmMacniel
I see now there’s some confusion. When it said “toggle button”, I thought a Switch was being discussed, but when I clicked on the OP I see it actually does mean button, so we’ve got some people talking about switches and some people talking about buttons (and yeah, a switch should show current state, but a button should show what would happen if you clicked it).
This would be correct if the post was about switches (which TBF many people made that mistake, including me initially), but it’s about buttons - buttons should show what action will result from clicking on them. e.g. “Cancel” on a button which is going to cancel your process. For a play/pause button it should show play if you’re paused (if I click on this it will start playing) and pause if you’re playing (if I click on this it will pause).
oh yeah true, I was thinking of toggle buttons instead of buttons that keep their state/don’t release: like the formatting buttons (bold, italic, underline, …) in a word processor. The latter strangely are also named ToggleButtons so that’s a big confusion.
Yeah, the wording isn’t clear, and some people are talking about switches and some people are talking about buttons. I work with MAUI, and in MAUI a “ToggleButton” is called a Switch, so there’s no confusion there, but the OP specifically said a button which toggles. i.e. a button which has 2 states instead of just one. A play button which turns into a pause button when you press it and vice-versa. I think the OP may have been confused between switches and buttons themselves - which are indeed labelled in opposite ways to each other (switch - current state, button - state that it will cause to happen when pressed) - which led to the question.
It should show the current state, just like a checkbox shows if its option is enabled, an input box its current value etc. Everything else doesn’t make sense.
Without seeing an example I would’ve said a button (actual button, not a checkbox or slider) should show the future state. If a button says “Cancel” I would expect the state to go from a pending state to a cancelled state. Same with a button that says “Submit”. So if it’s some kind of toggle, like play/pause, I would think hitting ⏸️ means I’m currently playing and I want to pause.
Buttons don’t show what is currently happening, but what action, with the provided user input via toggles, input boxes, checkboxes if any, should be taken. In your example, your Cancel Button should Cancel the transaction.
@BrianTheeBiscuiteer @DmMacniel
I see now there’s some confusion. When it said “toggle button”, I thought a Switch was being discussed, but when I clicked on the OP I see it actually does mean button, so we’ve got some people talking about switches and some people talking about buttons (and yeah, a switch should show current state, but a button should show what would happen if you clicked it).
This would be correct if the post was about switches (which TBF many people made that mistake, including me initially), but it’s about buttons - buttons should show what action will result from clicking on them. e.g. “Cancel” on a button which is going to cancel your process. For a play/pause button it should show play if you’re paused (if I click on this it will start playing) and pause if you’re playing (if I click on this it will pause).
oh yeah true, I was thinking of toggle buttons instead of buttons that keep their state/don’t release: like the formatting buttons (bold, italic, underline, …) in a word processor. The latter strangely are also named ToggleButtons so that’s a big confusion.
Yeah, the wording isn’t clear, and some people are talking about switches and some people are talking about buttons. I work with MAUI, and in MAUI a “ToggleButton” is called a Switch, so there’s no confusion there, but the OP specifically said a button which toggles. i.e. a button which has 2 states instead of just one. A play button which turns into a pause button when you press it and vice-versa. I think the OP may have been confused between switches and buttons themselves - which are indeed labelled in opposite ways to each other (switch - current state, button - state that it will cause to happen when pressed) - which led to the question.