Re: GnomePropertyBox

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

On 29Jun2001 11:41AM (-0400), Iain wrote:
> 
> > I think a nice way to do things is to apply changes instantly as you
> > manipulate the controls, and provide a way to undo changes (either
> > undo one at a time, or revert them all). So the two buttons I'd
> > suggets are "Revert" or "Undo" and "OK" or "Close".
> > 
> > Changes that apply instantly are definitely the best for tweaking
> > things and trying out different preferences.
> 
> I like this way as well, but it's a lot harder to program, and so many
> people will end up doing their own property dialogs just so they can
> avoid having to do the instant changes, and that sucks more.

Actually, with GConf or bonobo-config, it's _easier_ to program
instant-apply settings than to delay applying them until the dialog is
closed. All you do is change the setting when the widget is
manipulated, and your application's callbacks to handle setting
changes that are registered with bonobo-config or GConf will get
called automatically.

But right now I don't think we have good tools to build instant-apply
preference/settings dialogs, which means everyone must write their
own. I think we should provide a good way of doing the nicer
instant-apply style of preference dialog, and perhaps leave in some
deprecated code for doing the old style.


Regards,

Maciej