Question

I have a table column where each row has one of three states, and the purpose of the row is to offer manipulation AND display of this property with three states.

My current development view is to have three tightly packed radio buttons with labels at the head of the columns (and every 50 rows or so) and onClick they send an AJAX request and thar she blows.

This is fugly.

Is there a standard idiom for a control like this? I’m currently mocking up something similar to the iPhone on/off toggle, but with a “middle” state.

Any input would be welcome.

EDIT

A bit more clarification: I have a tool for confirming events. Each event is either “proposed”, “cancelled”, or “confirmed”. They all default to “proposed” until someone explicitly confirms or cancels them. This is a thin front-end for a SQL table.

Answer 1

I’ve seen this handled with image buttons that remain “depressed” when you click while popping the other two out. They act like radio buttons except that the label and the state are merged. If your names are too lengthy to fit in a button, you can abbreviate them and provide a key. I’d also give each one a distinct color. For implementation just pop the value in a hidden form field on click.

These are called “Toggle Buttons” in some other UI’s:

• http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/book/HIG.Controls2.html
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd940509%28VS.85%29.aspx
• http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/controls-toggle-buttons.html