[ui-best-practices-working-group] Question about how to handle best prac

[brian.fitzpatrick@xxxxxxxxxx]

Hi all...

I'm new to the mailing list and group,
so I apologize if this is considered some variety of canned "meat".
:)

In DTP, we have a bug (https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=243489
) where it's been noted that a wizard starts in an error condition in some
cases. It was mentioned that Eclipse
UI guideline 5.3 (http://wiki.eclipse.org/User_Interface_Guidelines#Initialization_2)
recommends against such a thing, which does make sense.

I've included a screen shot of the wizard.
You can clearly see the error noted in the banner at the top of the wizard
page.

The rationale I used for the chunk of
code creating this problem is as follows:

1) If there's nothing to select in the
combo box, the user has to perform an action (i.e. create the object that
would be listed in the combo list) before they can continue, therefore
rather than allowing the user to click Finish and potentially create an
object that would be unusable in an inconsistent state, I block the user
from doing that. 

2) If there is something to select in
the combo box, we automatically select the first item in the list, which
clears the error state. 

How have other folks dealt with this
case? I could see adding an error/message label beneath the combo box that
would note this state, but it would take up real estate better used by
the rest of the wizard page for custom user interface elements. But other
than that and the error message in the wizard page banner, I'm at a loss
for options. 

Any and all suggestions would be greatly
appreciated!

--Fitz

Brian Fitzpatrick
Eclipse Data Tools Platform PMC Chair
Eclipse Data Tools Platform Connectivity Team Lead
Staff Software Engineer, Sybase, Inc.