Accordion (GUI)

Accordion (GUI)

In a graphical user interface, an accordion is a vertically stacked list of items (e.g. labels or thumbnails). Each item can be "expanded" or "stretched" to reveal the content associated with that item. There can be zero or more items expanded at a time, depending on the configuration.

The term stems from the musical accordion in which sections of the bellows can be expanded by pulling outward.

A common example of a GUI accordion is the Show/Hide operation of a box region, but extended to have multiple sections in a list.

An accordion is related to a tabbed interface, a horizontal list of items where exactly one item is expanded into a window (shortcuts to access separate windows).