Re: intelligent dialogs

[Liam Quin <liam holoweb net>]

On Wed, Aug 09, 2000 at 07:45:48PM -0700, gavin hurley wrote:
> The Mac style tends to label the buttons according to what they do ([Don't
> Save] [Save] [Cancel]). The dialog text still explains the situation but the
> user usually doesn't have to expend much effort to figure out what to press
> to accomplish her goal.

Yes, the open look ui had stuff on this too.
It can be harder to translate, but works better.

It's useful to have some standard buttons with meaning --
e.g. a proprty dialogue should have Apply, Reset, and Dismiss-without-change
(usually that last is called Cancel).  It's useful to have options on
Reset, Reset to Factory Defaults, to Last Values, or to Personal Defaults,
perhaps.

Lee

-- 
Liam Quin - Barefoot in Toronto - liam@holoweb.net - http://www.holoweb.net/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net www.valinor.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
author, The Open Source XML Database Toolkit, Wiley, August 2000
Co-author, The XML Specification Guide, Wiley, 1999