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

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Matthew Thomas wrote:
> 
> The relevant principle here is one I call `there's only one obvious way
> to do it'. Basically, if you provide two (or more) similarly accessible
> methods of achieving the same function, the user will waste more time
> trying to decide which method is the fastest than they would have wasted
> by choosing the slower of the two.  And including a `Close' button in a
> window, where the window manager has provided one already, is the
> canonical example.

Actually, it's just occured to me that in most apps I've designed in the
past, on Motif, Windows and elsewhere, we've deliberately removed the
Close button from the title bar of dialog boxes anyway, to avoid this
very confusion. This is also cited as good practice in at least one
style guide I've read, although I forget which one.

Is there any reason why we couldn't do this in GNOME?  Can a GNOME app
control its window decorations in the same way we could in Motif?  I've
only just realised that pretty much every secondary window in all my
GNOME apps still has minimize, maxmize and close buttons, which doesn't
seem like a Good Thing to me, since it doesn't make sense to minimise or
maxmimise most dialogs.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems