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

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

Adam Elman wrote:
> Here's my proposal.  I think #1 and #2 are relatively
> uncontroversial; #3 is the heart of the debate we're having.
> 
> 1) System settings dialog boxes which can have incorrect settings
> should never be instant-apply.  These include network settings dialog
> boxes (where an intermediate setting in, say, an IP address field
> could be totally incorrect and dangerous).  These dialog boxes should
> have at least the following buttons:
> 
> [Cancel] [Apply & Close]
> 
> possibly plus "[Help]" if help is appropriate.  (I'm proposing "Apply
> & Close" here rather than "OK" because I think it's clearer, but I
> could be convinced otherwise.)  These dialogs shouldn't need a
> preview or "Apply" button in general, but it should be easy within
> the surrounding application (Setup Tools or whatever) to see the
> effect that the changes had and return to the dialog to make further
> changes.

I agree with 1) in general, with the reservation below:

(Yes, it has to do with button labels, sorry couldn't help it ;-). The
"Apply & close" button should IMHO be labeled "OK". However, I don't
feel very strongly about it and could easily be convinced otherwise with
some user testing, or even a majority here disagreeing with me, or some
convincing points.
Also, if the "Apply & Close" is the way to go, I'd much rather see
"Apply and Close" used, without the ampersand. I think it's clearer that
way.


> 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 agree with 2) in general, with the reservation below:

Even instant-apply dialogs should have buttons (my suggestion: "Cancel"
and "Close"). The reason is that we really cannot make any assumptions
about what window manager is used, what theme is used, the looks of the
theme or what WM buttons are present. Even if we recommend Sawfish and a
sane default theme, the user is free to change this into something
completely different, without any buttons at all, without the buttons we
assumed were present, or with them in a completely different order, a
completely different subset of them, with twenty other similar-looking
buttons, or completely different look of the buttons and them being
totally unrecognizable in general.
If we use this strategy with no buttons in instant-apply dialogs and
only relying on WM buttons, a user can easily put himself in the
position of an unusable desktop just by trying out some themes...

Also I'd argue that only relying on WM buttons is a step down for
keyboard navigation and accessability in general. It's much easier to
read a button caption and use tab to navigate to it, than figuring out
what the shortcut for closing a window is in the WM you happen to be
using. I'm not an accessibility expert but I think would be a major
problem.
We could in fact make this a competition: Figure out the WM keyboard
shortcut for closing a window, in the window manager you happen to be
using, in the shortest period of time, and *only using the keyboard*!
Having the Control Center already open doesn't count.


> 3) User preference dialogs which might have immediate visual effects,
> but also might take time to apply across the whole desktop, should
> _not_ in general be instant-apply.  (This is where we run into a real
> source for debate.)  This includes desktop/WM themes.  The problem is
> that while it'd be nice to have the immediate feedback, the time the
> computer spends processing the change actually gets in the way of
> using the system.  If you're on a slow machine, even if the settings
> change is not dangerous, the time wasted in waiting ~5 seconds for
> the theme to change can feel dangerous enough to prevent users from
> wanting to explore different settings.
> 
> If there is a way to set the preference via drag & drop (for
> instance, dragging a background thumbnail to the desktop, or dragging
> a color/theme chip to a receptacle) the result of that drag/drop
> should indeed be instant; however, dialog control settings should
> wait for a button click.
> 
> I propose that the buttons in this case should be "[Revert] [Apply]
> [Apply & Close]".  If "Apply" is clicked, "[Apply & Close]" should
> change to "[Close]".

I agree with 3) in general, with the reservation below:

I'm not sure about the set of buttons chosen, nor the labelling of them.
I simply don't have an opinion on them yet. :-)


Christian