Re: PropertyBox (The return of the)

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Murray Cumming wrote:

> Then I think [OK] would be clearer than [Close], given that it is
> commonly understood to mean 'Yes, I am happy, and I've finished with
> this'. [Close] suggests [Cancel] to some people.

For what it's worth, the first styleguide that came to hand that says
something about this was the Java one:

"The Close button is commonly used to dismiss simple secondary windows,
such as an Info alert box. The Close button is also commonly used to
dismiss dialog boxes in which user actions take effect immediately. A
Close button is appropriate in both modal and modeless dialog boxes."

This seems to cover the case we're talking about here, and I have to
agree I'd have been more tempted to use "Close" than "OK" myself before
I looked this up.  (There's a fair bit more on this topic at
http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/book/HIG.Dialogs2.html, if you're
interested.)

> This might not a be problem if it is *obvious* that all changes are
> applied instantly. How would you make it clear to people that their
> changes are being applied in real-time?

This could certainly be a problem.  We probably have to rely on the
choice of buttons we're discussing here to give people the main clue--
the presence of "OK" or "Apply" should suggest that changes aren't
applied until you press one of those buttons, whereas if you only have
"Undo" and "Close" in a dialog the implication would be that changes
happen immediately.  This is quite a subtle distinction, but if it's
applied consistently it should go some way to helping.

The ideal situation would be that every settings dialog in every GNOME
application would behave the same way, so people would never have to
worry about the difference between the two styles, but of that's
probably not going to happen  :o)  (There are some situations where it
doesn't quite make sense anyway, for example when adjusting a setting
requires a few seconds to take effect).

> Then users will get inconsistent behaviour and will not know what it
> actually does. I suggest that you rename it to [Undo Changes].

If we do call it Undo (or Undo Changes), perhaps Ctrl+Z should act as a
shortcut for it? Just a thought...

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems