Development:Editing Nibs

Follow the general guidelines in the Aqua Human Interface Guidelines about positioning controls and center-equalization, with exceptions as noted below.

• Be sure you do not break the focus and tab cycle (both normal and Full Keyboard Access) when adding or changing controls in nibs.
• Make sure the initialFirstResponder is correctly set to the first element which should have focus (even though Bug 327203 currently blocks this in prefPanes).

• It's important that all prefPane windows have a width of 595 px (since they will be forced to that dimension in the actual prefs window).

• Application names in nibs should be capitalized. Any quotations should use curly quote characters. Omit the comma before the last item in a series.

• Capitalize pref names that are sentences like sentences (aside from also capitalizing the first word in the "option" part of the sentence), and capitalize all words in pref names that are fragments.

• As per the HIG, buttons which have further actions receive an ellipsis ("..."). Many times this means that the ellipsis should follow buttons which open sheets, but not buttons which open windows.

• website, web pages, Internet, URL, Location bar, pop-up, text field.

When modifying nibs, keep the following template in mind (from discussion over Bug 308942).

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

Despite the image above, all hint text should be left-aligned with the left edge of the widget for which the text provides a hint.