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Avoid putting an application-specific contextual menu in your toolbar. The only contextual menu that makes sense in a toolbar is the toolbar customization contextual menu. If you need to offer a set of commands that act upon an object the user selects, use an Action menu control (described in “Action Menus” (page 284)).

Scope Bars

A scope bar allows users to specify locations or rules in a search or to filter objects by specific criteria. In general, scope bars are not visible all the time, but appear when the user initiates a search or similar operation. Figure 14-19 shows the scope bar Safari displays when the user performs a find (because the Safari find operation does not allow the addition of scoping criteria, you can think of it as using an implied scope of “all”).

Figure 14-19 A scope bar supports find operations within a window

Scope Bar Appearance and Behavior

A scope bar is a horizontal strip that can appear just below your application’s toolbar. It can be visible at all times, but is usually invisible until the user initiates an operation such as a search or find.

Although a scope bar may contain a search field control, it often contains only two types of controls, both of which are designed solely for use in a scope bar. The first control is the recessed-style scope button, which is used to display scoping locations and categories. The second is the round rectangle–style scope button, which is used to save or manipulate a scoping operation (for details on these controls, see “Scope Buttons” (page 263)).

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You can also display filter rows below a scope bar that allow users to specify additional rules that help refine the scoping operation. In addition to the round rectangle–style scope button (used for selecting or saving scoping criteria), a filter row can also contain text fields that accept user input. For example, when users search in the Finder, they can click the Add button to view a new row with supplementary rules they can use to refine their search. Figure 14-20 shows a Finder window with several filter rows displayed below the scope bar.

Figure 14-20 A scope bar can display filter rows for refining a search

Designing a Scope Bar

Scope bars are useful for integrating search or filtering in your application. You might choose to provide a scope bar (instead of a separate Find window, for example) if you want the user’s focus to remain on the window. Be sure that you use a scope bar only to specify and narrow a search or to filter items by specified criteria. If you need to provide a way for users to navigate or to select collections of items or data that should appear in the window, however, you should use a source list instead (described in “Source Lists and Sidebars” (page 203)). For example, the Dictionary application uses a scope bar to allow users to dynamically filter results by reference type (such as dictionary, thesaurus, or Apple dictionary), as shown in Figure 14-21.

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2008-06-09 | © 1992, 2001-2003, 2008 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved.