Re: [Usability] Consistency 1: more Stock items, Discard for example.

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Tue, 21 Dec 2004, Seth Nickell wrote:

> Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 17:46:32 -0800
> From: Seth Nickell <snickell gmail com>
> Reply-To: seth gnome org
> To: Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>
> Cc: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Consistency 1: more Stock items,
>      Discard for example.
>
> http://usability.gnome.org/hig/2.0/windows-alert.html#save-confirmation-alerts
>
> I continue to claim that the best way to get widespread interface
> consistency is to make it the easiest way to go.

Agreed.  Particular I would hope that Glade and other Rapid Application
Tools could make it difficult (but not impossible) to create a non-HIG
interface unless you deliberately set out to do so.

Part of the reason I brought up this issue is because there are other many
other things (like "View, Status Bar" for example, something specified in
the HIG but doesn't seem to have a stock item yet) that are so common that
stock menu items would probably be a good idea and I'd very much
appreciate advice on how to go about adding them or figure out how to get
someone else to add them.

> Jody chose to ignore HIG here,

I think it is a little harsh to say that not following the exact button
labels in this case was deliberate ignoring the HIG and given that I
mentioned quite a few other programs it is little unfair to single out
Jody.  The HIG after all is not Gospel it is just guidelines (and I
wouldn't even assume Jody necessarily added the dialog either as such a
basic bit of functionality has probably been there for years).

I think the more verbose labelling was worth a try but it really doesn't
work for me, and I much prefer a single word "Discard", but irregardless
of that if there had been a GTK_STOCK_DISCARD and developers had been
encouraged to use it the label would need only be changed in one place
(and although I wouldn't recompile all of GTK to change one label to how I
want i might just do for a whole set of labels, a filechooser, and one or
two other widgets I'd rather not argue about).

> but I suspect if there was a GtkSaveConfirmationAlert he would have just
> used it.

That I dont doubt.

As for a GtkSaveConfirmationAlert I wonder how that would work with
applications like the GIMP which provide a more advanced Save Confirmation
Alert if there are multiple unsaved files (and even their ordinary save
confirmation dialog has a custom timer telling you how long it has been
since the document was last saved).

> However, Owen and others do not want to push policy with
> technical decisions in GTK+. *shrug*

I would hope that some tasks would crop up often enough that it would be a
technical decision to add it to GTK and provide a clean API so that others
could argue over the policy and figure out what widgets and the labels to
use and other implementation details later (and I'll continue that idea
when after christmas I follow-up with the rest of the ideas I had to split
out into 'Consistencey 2').

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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