Success or Failure (Common Desktop Environment: Style Guide and Certification Checklist)

Common Desktop Environment: Style Guide and Certification Checklist

Success or Failure

The user needs an indication that the drag-and-drop operation either succeeded or failed. You should use transition effects to indicate the success or failure of the drop.

There are two kinds of transition effects: melt and snap back. The melt effect is used when the user drops a drag icon on a valid drop zone. The effect looks like the drag icon melts into the drop zone. The drag icon goes away and is replaced by whatever is appropriate for the destination application. Dropping a drag icon on the Print Manager control on the Front Panel may show nothing other than the melt in effect. Dropping a drag icon on the File Manager control would show the melt in effect followed by the icon appearing in File Manager.

The snap back effect is used when the drop fails. Drops can fail in two ways: because the drop zone is invalid, or because the data transfer fails. If the user drops a drag icon over an invalid drop zone, one that shows the cannot pointer drag icon, then the drag icon snaps back to the source application.

Once a drop occurs, the source and destination applications have to transfer the data. If the data transfer fails, there are two things that the destination application should do. The first is to indicate to the API that the drop failed so that the dropped item will get snapped back to the source application. The second is to put up an error notice to the user that clearly indicates why the drop failed and what, if anything, the user can do to correct the situation.

Sometimes the transition effect does not take place immediately. The icon appears where it is placed until the transfer is done. During this time, applications should set the cursor to the busy state. The icon cannot be moved or selected by the user until the transfer is complete; the busy cursor tells the user the transfer is in process.

Recommended	ea:	In a collection that supports copy, move, or link operations that can be performed by dragging, the feedback presented to the user during the drag operation indicates whether a single object or multiple objects are being manipulated.
Required	eb:	After a successful transfer, the data is placed in the drop zone, and any transfer icon used by your application is removed.
Required	ec:	If your application removes data upon the completion of a drag and drop, it does so only if the drag-and-drop transfer has completed successfully.
Required	ed:	After a failed transfer, the data remains at the drag source and is not placed in the drop zone. Any transfer icon used by your application is removed.
Recommended	ee:	If the user drops an object at an inappropriate drop zone within your application's window, your application participates in the display of a snap back effect and also posts an error dialog box indicating the reason the drop was disallowed.
Required	6-17:	If your application provides any drag-and-drop help dialog boxes, they contain a Cancel button for canceling the drag-and-drop operation in progress.