![]() Qtopia Home - Classes - Hierachy - Annotated - Functions - Licenses - Reference |
![]() |
This document describes the rules to be followed when designing a Qtopia application. The focus is on consistency, think very carefully before departing from the preferred style.
For ease of use the Qtopia Style Guide has been divided into several files:
Chapter | Content |
---|---|
General (this document) | Key binding, icons and their usage, Qtopia Desktop and formatting online help. |
Application Design | Outlines the styles that should be followed when creating a new Qtopia application including navigational flow, lists, and viewing items. |
Naming Conventions | Outlines the conventions for the use of capitals, abbreviations, acronyms and the formatting of labels. See Also styleguide-widgets.html |
Widgets | Outlines the styles that should be followed when creating or modifying widgets. See Also styleguide-naming.html |
Online Help | Outlines the styles that should be followed when creating or modifying online help files. |
Qtopia requires the following keys:
Name | Alternative representations | Usual binding |
---|---|---|
Previous | Left, Up, or Down Arrow* | Previous item or value. |
Next | Right, Down, or Up Arrow* | Next item or value. |
Select | Yes, OK | Activate item or confirm changes. |
Back | No, Cancel | Delete text or close window. |
1 | 1 or space | |
2..9 | Digits with phone key lettering. | |
0 | 0 or Function 1 | |
* | * or Function 2 | |
# | # or Function 3 |
Qtopia supports the following additional keys:
Name | Alternative representations | Usual binding |
---|---|---|
Menu | Invoke context menu. | |
Up | Up Arrow | Item physically above |
Down | Down Arrow | Item physically below. |
Left | Left Arrow | Item physically to the left. |
Right | Right Arrow | Item physically to the right. |
Delete | Cancel, Clear | Delete item. |
Jog | Wheel up/down | Scroll view or values. |
F\ex | Function keys | Invoke global operation. |
* on some phones, two keys represent both vertical and horizontal directions of suggested motion. Sometimes these are a Left/Up button and a Right/Down button, at other times they are a Left/Down button and a Right/Up button.
Icon | Component | Filename | Description of Use |
---|---|---|---|
![]() | Context Bar | back.png | Done: Finished using the current screen and wish to return to previous window. |
![]() | Context Bar | backspace.png | Delete text: Deletes (backspace) 1 character. |
![]() | Context Bar | cancel.png | Cancel: Removes all changes performed on the current item (transaction). |
![]() | Context Bar | ok.png | Accept: Accepts and disengages the current information/data in the currently selected widget. |
![]() | Context Bar | options.png | Open/Close Menu: Displays the current window's context menu. |
![]() | Context Bar | select.png | Engage/Select: Selects the current item, widget or grouping. |
![]() | Context Bar | view.png | More Information: Selects and displays information about the currently focused item. |
![]() | Context Menu | beam.png | Beam: Sends the currently viewed item via IR. |
![]() | Context Menu | edit.png | Edit: Edits the currently viewed item. |
![]() | Context Menu | find.png | Find/Search: Locates an item. |
![]() | Context Menu | help_icon.png | Help: Displays the help documentation for the current window. |
![]() | Context Menu | new.png | New: Creates a new item. |
![]() | Context Menu | trash.png | Delete item: Deletes the currently viewed item. |
An application can have one or more help pages that can be viewed by either:
The help files are found in the current help path as specified by: Global::helpPath().
Each help file is encoded in UTF-8 and translation files are provided if required.(See also: Qtopia Internationalization).
The format of a help file can be modified by the user to present device-specific help content using:
For a list of the tags used to format help content see the Structuring tags section in the QStyleSheet class documentation.
Device-specific help content is delineated via special tags that are supported by the Help Browser Preprocessor.
Like all Qtopia applications the HelpBrowser uses of the Resource class to determine the best image or icon to use at runtime.
For example: The following code in $QPEDIR/examples/application/help/html/example.html displays:
Code | Image Displayed |
---|---|
<img width=12 height=12 src=Example> | $QPEDIR/pics/Example.png ![]() |
For example: The following code in $QPEDIR/help/html/qtmail-write-mail.html displays on a PDA device:
Code | Image Displayed |
---|---|
<img src="qtmail/reply"> | $QPEDIR/pics/qtmail/icons/14x14/reply.png ![]() |
The application .pro file has a help project that defines which help file to install. For example in $QPEDIR/example/application/application.pro:
help.files=example.html help.path=/help/html INSTALLS+=help
Note: The name of the help file must be prefixed by the executable name of the application.
Context sensitive help is help associated with a specific widget. Creating context sensitive help for a widget requires the following:
<application exec name>-<widget name>.html
For example the addressbook application has the AbEditor class which has in its constructor
setName("edit");So for the edit widget of addressbook, the help file is named:
$QPEDIR/help/html/addressbook-edit.html
When an application is activated via a QCop message in order to view a document, pressing Back or Done must close the application. For example viewing a picture from the Documents launcher will open the picture in the Pictures application, Closing the image viewed in the application will close the application and return to the Documents launcher.
Qtopia desktop should follow the same standards adhered to in Qtopia and should also follow close to the standards established by desktop user-interfaces.
Note: Creation of events, tasks and contacts should follow the creation rules specified in Qtopia, that is, if the user does not enter sufficient information the item is not created.
Copyright © 2005 Trolltech | Trademarks | Qtopia version 2.2.0
|