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

[Kenny Graunke <kenny whitecape org>]

<quote who="Calum Benson">

> 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.

It seems John Harper removed the Close buttons from the Crux sawfish theme
on transient windows because of this... (As far as I can tell, transient
windows are dialogs, etc, though I'm sketchy on exactly what...guess I need
to read ICCCM ;-)

> 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.

--Kenny