What is better a row of buttons or a matrix or other?

I need to trigger an action for things. I can imagine a row of 26 buttons and a procedure with a 26-tier Case statement. Or perhaps a one-row matrix with 26 cells, picking up which cell was clicked. Or a single-row Text List object with 26 columns.

Even a single row of text with letters A-Z would work if it wasn’t too difficult to determine what letter in the text string was clicked on - given the physical dimensions of the row, width of the mono-width font (courier-isque) letters and mouse position.

I suppose the question is, the PanX’s world, on one form, is 26 buttons a lot? Thinking of the future, is 52 buttons on one form a lot?

Personally, I’d go for an info(“matrixcolumn”) click solution. It would be far easier to work with later than 26 or 52 individual buttons. That includes working with them in Graphics Mode.

I’ve had ~150 buttons on a form and it will work. But as Jim said, referencing them is going to be much easier if you can do a matrix. I could not.

Thank you, Jim and Robert. There were a few ways to go about this and I’m leaning way over toward the Matrix object.

After wrangling with the TextList object - which I replaced with a single-line display object and stepper button; more fitting for the amount of data I need to see at one time - I knew I could do this next step with buttons.

The “keeping track of them” part is trivial because they all have the same mechanics. With proper naming, I would text filter [ ] out the unique component in the name and use that for the continuing procedure.

But with all the toys JimR gives us on a form, why not expand my solution set. I like working with a single object that tells me what cell was clicked. Also, If I want, I can put a graphic of a button inside the matrix cell.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that my little MacMini is way faster than NSA’s Cray Super Computers of yesteryear. Problem is, I grew up in yesteryear so I have carried over yesteryear concerns.

At least I’m not worried about keeping the code segments within a 64K partition anymore. :grinning:

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