Notebook

The notebook control is used to provide an easy and intuitive method for a user to navigate through a complex dialog, where multiple related dialog boxes are displayed. The notebook control allows the programmer to assemble a collection of dialog boxes which relate to a single topic. It is designed to visually resemble a bound notebook with multiple pages.

The notebook control provides an easy-to-use user interface component that is consistent across multiple products. In this way, it helps products to conform to the Common User Access user interface guidelines.

The notebook used to provide the desktop setting is shown in Figure "Presentation Manager Notebook for Desktop Setting".

Data in the notebook is presented on pages bound together on one edge. Pages appear recessed on two edges of the book, thus providing a three-dimensional appearance.

The notebook control supports the use of both a pointing device, such as a mouse, and the keyboard for displaying notebook pages and tabs, and for moving the selection cursor from the notebook tabs to the top page. The end user can turn from page to page or may go quickly from one tab page to another. The following navigation components are provided:

Section dividers

Across from the notebook binding are the major section dividers (called major tabs). The section dividers provide a means of organizing the data within the book. Each section within the notebook may contain single or multiple pages. The notebook provides a method for the end user to turn the pages within a section and also to skip from one section to another easily. Just as dividers provide an indication of where the user is within the book, methods are supported to indicate where the user is within a section.

In the bottom right corner of the notebook in Figure "Presentation Manager Notebook for Desktop Setting" are the page buttons. These buttons are used to view one page of the notebook at a time. Selecting the forward page button (the right-pointing arrow) causes the next page to be displayed, while selecting the backward page button (the left-pointing arrow) causes the previous page to be displayed.

The visible area of the notebook is the top page. The application uses this top page to display information and facilitate user interaction. The top page may contain application-created windows or dialogs. Only one page is visible at any time. The notebook handles the hiding and showing of the topmost window or dialog when pages are turned.

If all the tabs currently inserted cannot be displayed, scroll arrows are provided to scroll the tabs forward and backward. Figure "Presentation Manager Notebook used in Master Help Index" shows a notebook used by the Master Help Index.

The notebook control is comprised of various regions which may be dynamically resized. Whenever the notebook window is resized or any of the notebook visual regions are resized the notebook dynamically recalculates the sizes of all affected regions for future display.