3.15 Style guide

Note: These topics aren't discussed here just for fun. You will annoy lots of users if you don't pay attention to them!

File Requester:

Even if MUI features a file list and a volume list object and makes building a private file requester very easy, you should always provide a possibility to pop up a standard asl requester for this purpose. Just add a little popup button right beneath your file string gadget and everything will be fine. MUI offers a file-popup object exactly for this purpose. Note well: Many users (including myself) move programs with non-standard file requesters into the trashcan immediately.

Window Size:

With MUI, it's very easy to have lots of gadgets within a single window. Since you as a programmer usually have a more powerful system with higher graphic resolutions as most of your users, windows tend to become too big. You should always make sure that everything you design fits on a standard 640x256 screen with a topaz/8 font. Otherwise, MUI will try to use very small fonts or virtual groups to make your window fit, making your application look and feel bad.

Keyboard Control:

Even if you're a "mouse-only" user, add keyboard cycle chains and gadget shortcuts to your application. It's very few work for you and helps lots of users. See Cycle chain for details.

Background:

MUI allows the user to adjust lots of different backgrounds for objects. Even if you don't use this feature, you should always test your program with a fancy background pattern configuration and check whether all your buttons really have button backgrounds, all your framed texts really have text backgrounds, etc.

Add a shortcut to MUI preferences:

Every MUI program should include a menu item that allows the user to configure the appearance of the program using the MUI preferences program. This can be done very easily by adding a menu item that simply runs the method Application.OpenConfigWindow on the application object. Also, you should include "About MUI" and "About MUI Royale" menu items that show the "About MUI" and "About MUI Royale" windows which you can open using the Application.AboutMUI and Application.AboutMUIRoyale methods respectively.

And last...

Don't forget the traditional Amiga style guide!