Re: [Usability] Dialogs and Maximize button

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On Sep 21, 2006, at 9:33 PM, brian muhumuza wrote:
> There are many types of dialogs and depending on which, resizability 
> may be good or bad.
>
>  I'm suggesting a new way of showing dialogs that solves these 
> problems and another one of rude interuption.
>  I suggest that all dialogs are drawn within the app's window be it a 
> progress dialog or an infor dialog or a configuration dialog, etc.
>
>  A dialog would just slide from below the tool bar and when you are 
> done, it slides back.

This is pretty much a description of sheets, which have been in Mac OS 
X for several years. OS X demonstrates that having a dialog slide down 
onto the application's window has nothing to do with resizability: a 
non-resizable window (such as System Preferences) can have a resizable 
sheet (such as the "Choose Folder" filepicker for the screensaver), and 
conversely a resizable window (such as a Web browser) can have a 
non-resizable sheet (such as Page Setup).

Being a sheet isn't appropriate for all dialogs, because some dialogs 
don't *have* parent windows.

And finally, progress windows are not dialogs.

I think fastening a dialog to its parent window is a poor approach 
because it prevents me from seeing information in the parent window 
that I might need for using the dialog. I think a better approach would 
be to move the dialog automatically when I move the window, but to not 
move the window automatically when I move the dialog.

>  Some notable advantages are:
>
>   - Dialogs don't just pop up in your face.

There's no difference in their pop-uppiness, really.

>   - Since they always slide from the top, they are predictable i.e. 
> they don't just pop up at the bottom of the screen or on the left of 
> the screen, etc

Dialogs that are not attached to their parent window should still 
default to opening in a predictable position (defaulting to optically 
centered on their parent window, or maybe even to the center of the 
screen if that's part of the window's area).

The total effect of sheets is sometimes *less* predictable and more 
disconcerting than non-sheet dialogs: if the parent window is partly 
off-screen, OS X sometimes has to scroll it on-screen so that the 
dialog will be visible.

>   - There's very little mouse movement when there's many dialogs one 
> after another because they slide ontop of one another.

That shouldn't be happening anyway, but even if it did, I don't see the 
difference between attached and non-attached dialogs here.

>  - They can reuse the app's tool and menu bar.

Reusing the "Edit" menu of the parent window is useful. Less so for the 
toolbar, I think.

>  The disadvantage of these dialogs is:
>   - You will not see a dialog for apps/windows at the back, but then 
> again that's the idea, right!
> ...

The same is supposed to apply to existing dialogs; it shouldn't pop in 
front of unrelated windows. If it does, that's a bug.

Cheers
--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/