R – How to name GUI elements

naming-conventionsuser interface

One thing that constantly causing me headache in programming is when I don't have any naming-convention in a domain where I have to deal with a lot elements. It is clearly what is happening to me when using UI designers such as Windows Forms designer.

Everytime I start a new project I am trying to reinvent a "seem-strong" naming convention but it always fail at some points. For me there is 2 main problems compared to classic code definition for naming GUI elements:

  • You have to place a lot of variables (GUI elements) which can all be accessed in the same scope, so you need to have to a strong naming convention to find quickly the right element.
  • You often need to access to a specific type of GUI control (ex: TextBox, Label, …), so the best solution for GUI elements is to name them after their types (Hungarian style notation), which can be sometimes confusing and not helping in finding the right element quickly.

If someone has a documentation describing a good convention or a strong convention he invented for its own project, I would really like to know it!

NB: I did not classified this question under .NET or Windows Forms tags has it seems applicable to a lot of frameworks. If not, let me know.

EDIT:

In fact the convention I most use is using a reversed hungarian notation (meaning the type comes first) followed by a path based on the UI elements hierarchy. For example, to easily access to a TextBox which belongs to the "Settings" tab of my program I would call it this way:

this.tb_settingTab_xxx

My problem using this convention is that it is not perfect and sometimes fails when you have a UI element that belongs to another which also belongs to another which also belongs to …

I am really searching for is the unbreakable and handy naming-convention. I am quitely surprised that Microsoft never gaved any guidelines concerning this. Or am I going wrong? (ie. Mark Rushakoff comment).

Best Answer

There are various naming conventions described in this post. The key is to remain consistent throughout the project. I deal with a lot of controls, but find it straightforward to label them based on what they are. Textbox = tbMyControl, Label = lblMyControl. The 'MyControl' bit might be the same if they relate to similar aspects (e.g. tbUsername, lblUsername). However, there's no confusion on what I'm accessing. If you find you're getting confused, then maybe you're trying too many different notations? Keep it simple and logical.

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