Re: Disabled commands, tips on how to enable them.

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Leonard Norrgard wrote:

> <vinsci> Yes - and I've found myself in that situation a number of
> times. Since the appl code already knows the reason why a command is
> disabled it should be mostly straightforward work to add it to current
> apps.

I've seen this tried before, and it's a nice idea when it works. 
Unfortunately, there are sometimes multiple simultaneous reasons why the
same command is disabled, it's not always possible, practical or helpful
to list them all.  (And of course, it's even worse to list only some of
the possible reasons, because if the user tries to rectify all those and
the command is still disabled, then they're going to get very annoyed).

It might be nice to try it and see how well it worked in practice in
GNOME, though-- I've certainly written GUI style guides in the past for
smaller projects that recommend you should do this.

Cheeri,
Calum.

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

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems