Re: Default button in dialogs

[James "M." Cape <jcape ignore-your tv>]

On 16 May 2001 19:16:49 +0200, Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero wrote:
> mrogers cs ucl ac uk (2001-05-10 at 0328.26 +0100):
> > On Thu May 10 2001, Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero wrote:
> > > Please read http://www.delanet.com/~jkmissig/interface-guide.txt, it
> > > proposes Enter in smarter way than OK (mainly cos OK must be avoided
> > > if possible ;] ).
> > 
> > I've looked at it, and I have a couple of comments:
> > 

> > ii) At the moment Close looks like Cancel (it uses a similar icon). If 
> 
> Icons, hehehehe. First problem I found when talking with other people
> is the confusion (I do not use them, jsut the texts, no confusions for
> me).
> 
> > it's going to mean "accept the current settings and close the dialog", 
> > maybe it should be called "Accept" and/or use a similar icon to OK?
> 
> Yep, it could be Accept.

The problem with doing that is "OK" literally means "I accept" or "I
understand".

I personally do not believe that "Close" should be used anywhere it can
be avoided. Ok/Cancel (or verb equivs) handle the two major choices:

    (OK) Accept the user's changes and continue in the app.
    (Cancel) Cancel the user's changes and continue in the app.

Handling OK/Cancel:

UI changes should apply in real-time unless there is some massive
resource requirement (changing GTK+ themes is the most obvious example).
Prefs which have said resource requirement should include a "Try" button
next to the pref. "Revert" is unnecessary, since "Cancel" exists.

Non-UI changes (personal information and other text-entry-based prefs
being the most obvious examples) should be applied on OK.

Cancel should revert all changes to their state when the dialog was
opened, and close the dialog.

OK should apply all the preferences that exist in the dialog, then close
the dialog. Errors in non-ui preferences should be reported at this
time, if doing so is not overly time consuming.

MacOS recommends this, and so do I.

    Jim Cape
    http://www.ignore-your.tv

    If the United States Government spent as much on education
    as it did on the military, every student could fail in a
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