Re: Control Center must-fix draft

[Adam Elman <aelman users sourceforge net>]

At 1:14 PM +0100 9/6/01, Michael Rogers wrote:
> Seth Nickell wrote:
> >  After some discussion, and a re-evaluation of the existing dialogue
> >  proposal, we propose the
> >  control center use "[Help]         [Undo] [Done]". Help is optional, but
> >  of course desirable.
> >  Undo only undoes the last change. Done closes the dialogue. All
> >  preferences should take effect as soon as the user changes them.
>
> I think [Cancel] would be more useful than [Undo]. [Cancel] is a
> psychologically important button for nervous users: it's the panic
> button. If you have screwed things up, then tried to put them right and
> just made them worse, you can always hit [Cancel]. But if you've made
> several changes it might be too late to hit [Undo]. I suggest
>
> [Help]		[Cancel] [Done]

The problem with "Cancel" in this case is that in an instant-apply 
dialog, it's not clear what it should do.  Should Cancel undo only 
the most recent change and then close the dialog, or should it undo 
all changes since the dialog was opened and then close it?  Plus, 
once you close the dialog it's annoying to have to reopen it to see 
what the changes were reverted to.

I think that a multi-level Undo is just as good as a "panic" button 
for users as "Cancel", and has the added advantage that it doesn't 
close the dialog, so the user can continue to use the dialog to make 
changes.

Now, this assumes that the CC dialogs are in fact instant-apply; I 
have recently proposed that they shouldn't necessarily be.  If 
they're not, then "Cancel" and "OK" (or, my preferred "Apply and 
Close") make more sense than "Undo".

Adam
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