Re: [HIG] (no subject)

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Wed, 2002-09-18 at 15:48, dstrand tds net wrote:

> 1)  Why 'reverse' the positions of the Alternate/Cancel/OK buttons
> from the Windows standard of Yes/No/Cancel?  

Choosing the Macintosh layout over the Windows one was probably the most
protracted UI debate that happened in the switch to 2.0.  I still have
concerns about using it in a non-homogeneous desktop environment myself,
but in and of itself there's decent evidence to suggest that it's a
better layout than the Windows one.  For example, it means the OK button
(or equivalent) is always consistently-placed between dialogs,
regardless of how many buttons are in the window.  

Check out the usability and hig archives for more background on all this
than you ever wanted to read :)

> 2)  Why specify "spacing and positioning inside alerts" in pixels? 
> With 200 dpi flat-panel monitors available, how long will it be before
>  your 6-pixel space between buttons looks like a hair's width?  In
>  short, why not use points?  Speed issues?

We'd love to, but neither Glade nor gtk support it AFAIK, so there
wouldn't be much point (no pun intended) :/

Cheeri,
Calum.

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