Toolbar

In computer interface design, a toolbar (originally known as ribbon)[1][2] is a graphical control element on which on-screen buttons, icons, menus, or other input or output elements are placed. Toolbars are seen in many types of software such as office suites, graphics editors and web browsers. Toolbars are usually distinguished from palettes by their integration into the edges of the screen or larger windows, which results in wasted space if too many underpopulated bars are stacked atop each other (especially horizontal bars on a landscape oriented display) or interface inefficiency if overloaded bars are placed on small windows.

Toolbar from gedit
OpenOffice.org allows its toolbars to be detached and moved between windows and other toolbars

Variants and derivatives

There are several user interface elements derived from toolbars:

  • Address bar, location bar or URL bar is a toolbar that mainly consists of a text box. It accepts uniform resource locators (URLs) or file system addresses. They are found in web browsers and file managers.
  • Breadcrumb or breadcrumb trail allows users to keep track of their locations within programs or documents. They are toolbars whose contents dynamically change to indicate the navigation path.
  • Ribbon was the original name for the toolbar, but has been re-purposed to refer to a complex user interface which consists of toolbars on tabs.
  • Taskbar is a toolbar provided by an operating system to launch, monitor and manipulate software. A taskbar may hold other sub-toolbars.

A search box is not ipso facto a toolbar but may appear on a toolbar, as is the case with the address bar.

Toolbars may appear in different software; some web browsers allow additional toolbars to be added through plug-ins. These browser toolbars have caused controversy as unscrupulous companies use software bundling to force users downloading one program to also install a browser toolbar, some of which invade the user's privacy by tracking their web history and search history online. Many antivirus companies refer to these programs as grayware or Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs).[3][4][5][6]

References
  1. The 1996 Oxford Dictionary of Computing describes the term "ribbon" in user interface design as "...a horizontal row of control icons that can often be redefined to suit the user's requirements."- what is currently more commonly referred to as "toolbar". Illingworth, V. (ed.) (1996). Oxford dictionary of computing. 4ed.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  2. ESPRIT '88: putting the technology to use : proceedings of the 5th Annual ESPRIT Conference, Brussels, November 14-17, 1988, Part 2. North-Holland. 1988. ISBN 978-0-444-87145-9. Retrieved 28 May 2013. [...] a ribbon that contains labeled icons (64×64 bit maps) representing tasks and tools that has been instantiated by the user. Each tasktool is represented by a different icon.
  3. Vincentas (11 July 2013). "Grayware in SpyWareLoop.com". Spyware Loop. Archived from the original on 15 July 2014. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
  4. "Threat Encyclopedia – Generic Grayware". Trend Micro. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
  5. "Rating the best anti-malware solutions". Arstechnica. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  6. "PUP Criteria". malwarebytes.org. Malwarebytes. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  • Media related to Toolbars at Wikimedia Commons


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