Re: [Usability] inability to experiment

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

Calum Benson wrote on 27/05/08 13:31:
>...
> See, this is where the argument went round in circles last time :)   
> Some others on the usability team at the time also suggested this  
> approach, but personally I don't think Undo is necessarily appropriate  
> for dialogs-- it's rare to make more than one or two changes in a  
> dialog at a time, in which case it's usually just overkill.

I think it would be appropriate for Preferences windows to have an Edit
menu containing Undo and Redo/Repeat items, as well as standard text
editing functions (Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Select All, Check Spelling).

For many controls -- checkboxes, radio buttons, sliders, and text fields
-- undo and redo/repeat wouldn't even require any support from the
application; it could be done entirely in GTK. But application support
would be needed for things like adding and removing items from a list,
where a list item almost always represents something more complex than
the text it shows.

>                                                              And when  
> you do make multiple changes, they're often quite independent of each  
> other, so you don't necessarily want to have to undo your last N  
> changes to undo the first one you made.  (Although, sometimes, you  
> might.)

This reminds me of Photoshop, which has accumulated multiple
partly-independent Undo/Redo/Repeat functions for different types of
action. As far as I can tell without actually having a copy: :-)
*   "Edit" > "Undo {whatever}" undoes/redoes the most recent action;
*   "Edit" > "Step Forward" and "Step Backward" act like "Redo" and
    "Undo" do in normal programs;
*   "Edit" > "Fade..." alters the opacity of the most recent action
    (something which only really makes sense for a bitmap editor);
*   "Select" > "Deselect" and "Reselect" undoes and redoes the most
    recent selection;
*   "Filter" > "Last Filter" repeats the most recent filter on the
    current selection.

> Then there's the question of whether a 'Reset to Defaults' button  
> would be useful too... probably 'yes', in some cases, but things would  
> start getting awfully cluttered if you add a Defaults and a Revert/ 
> Undo to every Preferences dialog...
>...

"Undo", "Revert", "restore from backup", and "Reset to Defaults" (where
relevant) are steps on a continuum that really should be simplified someday.

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