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



On Sun, Sep 09, 2001 at 06:05:33AM -0700, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> On 09Sep2001 01:02PM (+0100), colin z robertson wrote:
> > 
> > Maciej's suggestion being that the dialog should have different
> > buttons depending on how changes are applied, yes? I don't think this
> > is adequate. People don't read those buttons until they wish to apply
> > the changes (and they shouldn't have to), by which time it's too late.
> > It needs to be more immediately obvious than that.
> 
> If the difference ends up being 0 buttons vs some number more than 0,
> it will be very immediately obvious, don't you think?

Yes. Sorry, I was under the impression you were advocating leaving a
bottom row of buttons, but changing them to Revert/Close or something
of that nature.


> > There will always be performance issues. The more our machine power
> > increases the more we try to do with it. My BBC Model B (ah,
> > nostalgia...) booted to a usable state in less than a second. It
> > loaded programs at roughly the same speed as they load today. (From
> > disk, at least. From tape it was another story.)
> > 
> 
> There isn't a fundamental technical reason why something like
> "changing themes" should be slow. MacOS X can swap between "aqua" and
> "graphite" (the only two themes available, but there's an actual theme
> engine underneat) pratcially instantly.

Themes, perhaps. But we'll have things more complex than themes in the
future. And our themes may well get more complex too.


> If we think one style is better in most situations, we should
> recommend it's use unless there are reasons not to use it.

*If* we think that. I, personally, don't. However, I'm under very
heavy pressure here from you and Seth, and I may be being overruled.


> > I'm perfectly well aware that instant-apply is a behavioural thing.
> > Please, give me some credit. What I'm interested in is seeing if there
> > are any visual cues that the settings will be applied instantly. I
> > just have little desire to download a 10Mb program which I quite
> > dislike and which I know I'll delete immediately afterwards because
> > I'm permanently low on disk space.
> 
> Since you say you dislike it, does that mean you've tried it before?

Yes, I have. One of the pre-releases and 1.0.something.

> It's always had an instant-apply prefs dialog, so hopefully you'll
> have a vague memory of what it's like.

hmm. Very vague. I had so many problems with the UI of that program
that the dialogs would only have been a small part of that.

colin

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