Re: Orca patches from Ubuntu

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On Fri, 2006-09-08 at 09:15 -0700, Rich Burridge wrote:
> Henrik Nilsen Omma wrote:
> > The HIG suggests that Cancel should undo everything, even changes made 
> > before pressing Apply (so it's an Undo and Cancel button really -- is 
> > that the way the Cancel button now behaves?). 
>
> Not by my understanding of it (or the way I've implemented it in Orca).
> Cancel will just dismiss the Preferences dialog window. It doesn't adjust
> or save any settings.

So sorry for taking two months to follow up on this :/  I see the bug is
now closed, but to comment specifically on the HIG's advice here:

- The HIG does indeed say that Cancel should undo *everything* since
you've opened the dialog, even if you've clicked Apply in the meantime.
This was intentional, so that you always have a "get out clause".  But
this behaviour certainly is different from MS Windows' interpretation of
"Apply", and as such, I'm not sure whether it's either (a) what users
might expect/want, or (b) something that any other GNOME developer has
actually ever noticed and implemented before.

- It's even worse for instant-apply dialogs; there's a long-standing bug
about whether dialogs (instant-apply or otherwise) should feature a
Reset, Defaults or Undo button.  Right now we have none of those,
although a few instant-apply dialogs recently have spontaneously
sprouted "Reset" buttons, which makes me think that's the way to go.
(Actually I've always thought that, as it seems like the best balance
between simplicity and usefulness, but I could never convince enough
other people.)

Cheeri,
Calum.

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

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems