Tabs
With tabs, users can alternate between views. Three levels of tabs are available:
| At the top-level, tabs are presented in the traditional sense—as folder tabs. The most common use of top-level tabs is to present the main information about the objects in the inventory. At the second-level, tabs appear as buttons in a tab bar. A common use of this pattern is to extend the information about a specific object type.
| At the third-level, tabs appears in a vertical list, referred to as a table of contents (TOC). The most common use of this pattern is to show the details about a specific object. |
Guidelines
- Use tabs for alternate views within the main workspace.
- Don't use tabs for alternate views within a dialog. Use a multipage dialog instead.
- Select the left-most (or in the case of the TOC, the top-most) tab by default and remember it across sessions.
- Never put a tooltip on a tab bar.
- In general, don't include more than seven buttons in a tab bar. If you exceed this limit and not all buttons fit on the screen, provide left and right arrows for scrolling and a double chevron that expands to a menu of all buttons. Enable an arrow only when the user can scroll in that direction.
- Use a short, specific label for a tab and favor nouns over verbs, for example, Settings, Permissions, and Performance. Avoid generic labels that can apply to any tab, such as General or Advanced.
- Don't use icons in the label.
- Use title-style capitalization for the labels for tabs and tab bar buttons.
- Use sentence-style capitalization for the labels in the TOC.
- See the TOC/Detail View for guidelines on the use of this pattern.
Visual Specification
