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Chapter 20

Graphical User Interface Guidelines




This section covers the following topics:

These UI guidelines can help the developer of Sun Management Center
software-related products to create a user interface that is easy to learn, easy to use, and highly consistent with the existing Sun Management Center user interface.


Note - This chapter provides guidelines for making your software consistent with the various components of the Sun Management Center graphical user interface. However, these guidelines should not be construed to imply that support for a particular component necessarily exists in the Client API.

Sun Management Center software is built on Java 1.2, which placed limitations on the implementation of some UI elements, including:

Although these elements are not fully implemented in Sun Management Center software, they are important and are discussed in the following section. If you implement using a version of Java that supports these features, you can use these elements.


Consistency

Consistency is a broad term that can be interpreted in a number of ways. Here are three simple definitions, with examples, to keep in mind.


Information Sources

If you have questions that this guide does not address, here are some additional sources of information:


Main Console

FIGURE 20-1 shows the Main Console Window.

FIGURE  20-1 Main Console

The main console is divided into seven sections: pull down menus, navigation buttons, Sun Management Center Administrative Domains pulldown menu, alarm buttons, two panels and a status line.


Server Object Representation and Object Management

Sun Management Center software provides a host-centric user interface. That is, management is done from the perspective of the managed objects (servers and workstations). The entire main console is devoted to creating, displaying and editing managed objects. In a large or complex enterprise server installation, the number of managed objects can be large, and monitoring for errors or anomalies requires the ability to find malfunctioning objects quickly.

FIGURE  20-2 Main Console Window with Hierarchy and Topology Views

The server objects are represented in both a tree view list in the left panel and a layout view in the right panel (FIGURE 20-4). Object icons can be any size, but most of the existing icons are 42 x 42 pixels in the right-hand topology view and 16 x 16 pixels in the left hierarchy view. If you add new object icons, their sizes should be approximately the same as the existing icons.

The layout view, presented in FIGURE 20-4, is potentially very powerful, as it can be used to indicate the location of a managed object in real physical space, such as a server room. This enables monitoring or service personnel to pinpoint the exact location of a trouble source. Background images for this purpose can be added by selecting Set Topology Background from the View menu.

Typical Sun Management Center software customers have hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of host objects to manage and for this reason the main console, and all of the sub-consoles, must scale to large numbers. The main console has several features designed specifically for scalability:


Guidelines for Modifying Topology Views

Do not enhance or change the presentation of the Sun Management Center software agent in such a way as to interfere with the features described previously.

FIGURE  20-3 Domain Manager


Layout View

The topology view (FIGURE 20-4) displays the object selected in the hierarchy view, along with any peers that share its container.

FIGURE  20-4 Main Console Window with Hierarchy and Topology Views

FIGURE 20-5 shows an example of how the user can load a background gif file and place the items in a physical location, in this case a server room.

FIGURE  20-5 Topology View


Object Layouts

Only users with permission to create objects and groups are permitted to change layouts.

The choices are accessed through the Views menu:

Layout affects only the group within which it was chosen, but it is visible by any user console in which that group can be seen.


Status line

A Status line is located at the bottom of the console window. Be sure to give the user feedback about what is going on. The Sun Management Center status line gives messages such as "Downloading physical view images, please wait." "Paste was successful", "Object was created." This is a good place to put error messages, such as "Object not found."


Status Messages

Status messages must be shown left-justified at the bottom of every window (FIGURE 20-6). Messages from a previous action must last only until the next command is requested. When a new action is initiated, the status field must clear first and then show a message indicating the ongoing status of the new action, as that becomes available. Fonts and colors for status fields should be as defined in the Fonts section.

FIGURE  20-6 Status Message Location


User Input


Mouse Actions

The mouse actions are consistent across the Main Console, Details windows, and dialogs. This is an especially important consistency feature, because mouse actions are used quickly and automatically by most users. They do not want to have to stop and think about how to use the mouse. Mouse actions are defined as follows:


Selection Highlighting


Selecting Objects

When a selected object is put into the cut mode (by selecting the Cut item from the edit menu), the selection rectangle must go to the dashed-line form. The dashed-line rectangle must encircle the entire icon plus the text area (for example, remove text highlighting).

Multiple selection of topology objects is supported. Multiple selection cam be done two ways:


De-selecting Objects


Keyboard Navigation Shortcuts

Like mouse actions, consistent keyboard action are important because users rely on keyboard navigation to be quick and automatic, requiring little thought.

Sun Management Center software follows the Microsoft guidelines for keyboard navigation (The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design, Microsoft Corp., 1995).


Note - Keyboard methods are not well supported in Java 1.x software, on which Sun Management Center software is built. Only minimal keyboard navigation is provided.

The appropriate exit buttons for a dialog depend on what the dialog is intended to do:


Note - Java 1.x does not provide an easy way to specify a default button activated by keypress. If you develop on a version of Java that supports this, use the Java Look and Feel guidelines.


Table Appearance and Behavior

The appearance and behavior of tables throughout Sun Management Center software must be consistent with respect to:

Refer to the following illustration.

FIGURE  20-7 Table Details Window


Table Contents


Color


Note - In the Alarms Console window, Alarms are signaled with the appropriate alarm icon rather than a background color.

Table Position


Cell, Row, and Column Selection


Colors

Sun Management Center software follows the Java software look for the colors of windows and dialog with the following extensions and exceptions.


Fonts

Sun Management Center software follows the Java software font guidelines. Consult http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/dg/index.htm for details.


Graphing

FIGURE  20-8 Graphing Window

Sun Management Center software allows graphing of any numerical data variable with respect to time. Up to five variables can be plotted on the same graph. The white background is essential for making plotted points and their corresponding axis values highly visible.

FIGURE  20-9 Graph Header Title Editing Dialog

In this example, text can be entered, styled, and positioned. The Apply button is useful here in enabling the user to see the results of the changes before exiting the dialog.

If you intend to enhance the existing graphing system or add new graphing functionality, follow these guidelines closely.


Caution - Changing the axis scale and tick setting can potentially destabilize the actual or perceived behavior of the graphing function. Make such changes carefully.


Property Setting Dialog

Sun Management Center software enables property settings for the following, at a minimum:

Most of these settings are done in the Sun Management Center Attribute Editor (AE). The AE has a tabbed structure (folder tabs at top) that gives it extensibility. Here are some guidelines for modifying or enhancing the Attribute Editor and/or for adding new property-setting dialogs.

In the following example, the History setting tab for a data value inside a particular managed object (host machine) is shown (FIGURE 20-10).

FIGURE  20-10 History Tab of Attribute Editor on a Data Variable

The information shown in the preceding figure is typical, in that all instances of the Attribute Editor follow a similar pattern. This pattern is:


Optional Buttons

Reset is especially useful in the case of large panels with a lot of settings. Users occasionally make enough mistakes that is it better to start over. Reset reverts to original (current when dialog opened) values, not to a blank state. Use a button labelled Clear for users who want to set all widgets.

Things to avoid:


Time Setting

Time setting is a commonly-used function in management applications. The following guidelines stress optimal design:


Alarms

Sun Management Center software has an event signalling system that spans every aspect of the product, from the main console to the individual data table cells.

If you plan to modify or augment this alarm functionality, it is important to maintain consistency with this system.


Alarm System

As mentioned in the main console section, when modifying Domain Status Summary buttons make sure any new/modified buttons and icons are consistent with existing ones:


Details Window

FIGURE  20-11 Browser Details Window

The Sun Management Center Details window provides a wide variety of data for a managed object.

This window has the following tabs in Sun Management Center software; Info, Browser, Alarms, Processes, Log View, and Configuration. The tabs are an extensibility mechanism that product developers can use to enhance the capabilities of the software.

Any subwindows spawned from this window will close when this window is closed, with the exception of the Graphing window.




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