Development:Dropdown Lists
Moodle User Interface Guidelines > Dropdown Lists
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Status: incomplete This is a guideline for a Moodle Interface Guideline. Comments: developer forum thread
Problem
Context
Forces: factors that affect selection
- There may be too little room for several radio buttons or even for a checkbox
Solution
Common mistakes
Dropdown lists are used in Moodle (1.9) too much, and should be replaced with a checkbox when the choice is just yes/no, or otherwise usually with radio buttons.
A dropdown menu is not a navigation menu, but a form element. Hiding the submit button and making the form element submit automatically when a value is selected may raise serious accessibility issues. Where one is needed, a navigation menu (usually a CSS styled unordered list in HTML) should be used.
See also: Joel Spolsky's take on this
Examples and implementation
Example title
Related guidelines
Checkboxes and Radio buttons should be used instead in most cases.
Related issues in the tracker
TODO: go through the misuses of dropdown lists and create tickets
Further information / Sources
GNOME HIG: Drop-down Lists