Re: actual proposal

[Tom Vogt <tom lemuria org>]

Bowie Poag <bjp@primenet.com> wrote:
> > first of all, "Close" is not in the very least ambiguous. it does exactly
> > what it states - closing the popup-window. I do not think you can get much
> > clearer.
> 
> Lets use a creative example which illustrates what im getting at.
> 
> Here's your way of doing it, visualized:

first of all, this is a totally unappropriate dialog all in itself. it
reminds me of the constant "yes, I DO want this done" thingies in windoze.
you know, hit delete - "YES, delete this" - "YES, REALLY delete this" - "I
know it's an application, delete it already" - "yes, even if it's write
protected, I said delete, didn't I?" and so on...

second, your example doesn't fall within the category of popups I was
talking about. it obviously requires user interaction - it's waiting for
one. your example should have one Cancel and one OK button.



> See..when you say [ Close ]...Its indeterminant staement.

it's not. it's "close this window". for some windows, that is all you ever
WANT to say. why don't you take my examples? "About..." is an information
that you have no choice to approve or disapprove. "OK" would be
inappropriate because everywhere else it marks approval and execution of
something, whereas in information popups it only closes the window?


> Applications should, if anything, *AVOID* the use of [ Close ] as a choice
> of action, and use conventional [ Ok ] and [ Cancel ] options instead. 

+-------------------------------+
|                               |
|    Really Bad Error(tm)       |
|    your harddisk has just     |
|    been trashed. have fun.    |
|                               |
|                [Cancel] [OK]  |
+-------------------------------+

does that answer your question? :)

(I do agree, though, that the only REALLY appropriate button would be
something like [Grmph] :)) )


> Write a few "actual proposals" , Tom, and you'll learn how important
> precise wording is, and you wont get yourself into this kinda trouble. :) 

actually, I'm not writing these things to train my vocabulary, but rather to
get some work down the line. if they need rephrasing before going into cvs
that's fine with me, that's what this list is for, isn't it?



-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
		-- Henry Spencer