RE: HIG Dialog widget proposal

[<martyn 2 russell bt com>]

> On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 11:59, ext wrote:
> > > > I thought the HIG says to use an empty title for a dialog/alert?
> > >
> > > It says so but it the authors have probably been on some bad crack
> > > when they wrote that. I agree that the default window manager
> > > behaviour should be not to list a message dialog in the taskbar and it
> > > should also suppress the title. But if your window manager doesn't
> > > implement this behaviour, not setting a window title let's you end up
> > > with a dialog labelled "Untitled Window" and I don't think that's
> > > desirable.
> > >
> >
> > I agree, I sometimes think that perhaps a generic title would be more
> > appropriate, for example, "Alert" or may be something related to the
> > message, like "Information" or "Error", etc.
> 
> Oh, please, no.  That way the title will look like there's something
> worth reading there.  Plain 'Error' is worthless, you *still* need to
> read the primary text to get a clue.  If it's empty you can skip the
> extra step.

:)

I would argue that if there is a message dialog (regardless of title) it is there to be read, otherwise, why bother?

I don't think "Error" is worthless, because most people tend to only read the title of a dialog if it is not visible or something in a task list somewhere. If anything, text which requires the user to read on is a good thing in the case of an alert dialog isn’t it. Alerts are usually there for important details for the user to see.

I think having some information (i.e. "Error" or "Information") is better than no information when you only have titles of windows in a list to look through.

> 
> If an application specifically is setting the title to "" and the WM
> decides to display "Untitled Window" instead, which one should be fixed,
> really?

Personally I agree with Sven, having "" is undesirable, but so is having "Untitled Window".

If the HIG says you should have no title, then that should be achieved if possible.  As GTK intends to use a title less window for the GtkMessageDialog the window manager should respect that IMO.  If the window manager will not, then GTK should perhaps do what it can to comply with the HIG right?

Regards,
Martyn