Re: [Usability] Gnome button ordering

[Simon Howard <fraggle gmail com>]

On 10/5/05, Armand LEGRAND <armand legrand gmx net> wrote:
>  Hello,
>
> I am a brand new Ubuntu user and I enjoy this linux-based OS with Gnome. I
> tried KDE before but I wanted to try Gnome at once and I am (almost) not
> disapointed.
>
> Everything is clear and usefull but I have a problem with the button
> ordering for alerts as described in the HIG 2.0 (Figure 3.12).
>
> I dare not say that I know all the OS and window-managers but I know a few
> of them among the most common and I was really surprised when I saw that the
> button ordering with Gnome was different to the others I usually work with.
>
> I'd like to know two things:
> 1- Why is Gnome different on this point? Usually it's "Affirmative,
> Negative, Cancel"
> 2- Can I change this on my computer (Ubuntu Breezy with Gnome, naturally)
> without changing the window manager?
>
> Except this, I find your work pretty good. Go on this way and more and more
> users will turn to Linux.

It's done this way so that the button you're most likely to want to
select is at the bottom right corner of the window.  It seems a bit
odd if you've been using Windows for years (as many buttons end up
"backwards"), but after a while of using it, I find that it really is
much much nicer :-)

I think there has been some work done towards making it possible to
select alternate button orderings?  Maybe someone else has some more
information.  I'd certainly reccommend giving the GNOME style a try
though, as I really do feel that it makes dialogs more pleasant to
use.

--
Simon Howard
http://www.soulsphere.org/