Common Desktop Environment: Style Guide and Certification Checklist

Tool Bar Guidelines

Required 

fd: 

If you use a tool bar, it should be used only in windows with a menu bar. 

Required 

fe: 

Tool bars should contain only operations that are already available to the user in your application menus. All items in a tool bar should be redundant. 

Items in a toolbar are meant to provide quick access to operations that are already accessible to the user by other methods. 

Required 

ff: 

When an action represented by a tool bar icon is unavailable to the user, that icon should be made insensitive, with the associated stippled appearance. Whenever a menu item is made insensitive, the corresponding tool bar item must be made insensitive as well. 

Recommended 

fg: 

Give users the option to hide the tool bar.