Re: An alternative proposal for instant-apply vs. non-instant-apply

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

> > 2) Object property dialogs which have immediate visual effects (say, 
> > a style editor in a GNOME word processor or an object properties 
> > dialog in GIMP or Dia) should be instant-apply.  They should not have 
> > any buttons controlling the window: instead, the user should simply 
> > use the standard WM close box or a "close window" menu option to 
> > close the dialog, and the standard Undo command to undo actions 
> > (which ideally should have an infinite chain).  If there is no Edit 
> > menu with Undo available in the application, an "Undo" button should 
> > probably be present, although only if it has a reasonable number of 
> > Undo levels (i.e. more than 1).
> 
> I think an undo button should just be present. Its more consistent. Why
> should the user have to think "oh, this application has an edit menu, so
> I can undo". I would rather teach my mother "if you make a change you
> don't like, just click the undo button".

OK, I agree with Adam, never mind (I didn't understand his phrasing).

The rule is: if a dialogue affects document content rather than general
program settings, then the Application's edit->undo should be used in
favour of having an undo button on the dialogue. (adam calls these
property dialogues). So something that affects document content, like
the font used, paragraph style, etc should not have an undo button.

But a preference in the same program like "Show Spell Check underlines"
(yeah yeah, badly worded) should still have an undo button.

-Seth