Re: Default button in dialogs

[Julian Missig <julian jabber org>]

colin z robertson wrote:

> On Thu, May 31, 2001 at 06:54:34PM -0400, Julian Missig wrote:
>
> > > > Do we agree that the *order* of buttons should be like that in the
> > > > second proposal? I believe that Apple's Mac guidelines back up the
> > > > button order chosen there.
> > >
> > > My document has it differently, more in line with Windows practice
> > > than Mac. However, I'm easy on this point. I see it as a matter of
> > > pragmatism versus idealism, the ideal being the Mac way and the
> > > reality being that 90% or more GNOME dialogs are currently done the
> > > Windows way.
> > Yes, but we're not just supposed to document what GNOME and Windows
> > already do. The point is to make GNOME more usable. GNOME2 presents us
> > with the opportunity to get serious things changed. If you agree that
> > the ideal is the Mac way, then let's push to get this changed for
> > GNOME2. We need to get this changed in gtk2 *right now* if this is the
> > order we want.
>
>
> Ok, if you want to be idealistic about it I'm willing to go along with
> you on this. But here are some of the reasons for my original decision
> to go with current GNOME style:
>
> I value consistency. I believe that in calling for a change of all
> dialogs to a new style, we'd experience a long period of
> inconsistency. It's also possible that we'd fail to make the change
> and, in a worst case scenario, find ourselves with a permanent 50/50
> split.

We (#interface, and you if you care to) are attempting to get these 
changes adapted by the dialogs in gtk2 (Which are basically the dialogs 
which used to be in gnome-libs). If we fail to do this, then yes, it 
would result in something like that. However, I'm no longer going to 
want the dialog button order to apply to gnome2 if we fail to get these 
changes into gtk2. So basically, we either get it into gtk2 and have a 
fairly good chance of convincing other pieces of gnome2 to switch or we 
don't and then don't bother.

> It seems to me that perhaps a technical solution would be more
> appropriate: create a more semanticly-capable API in which it is
> possible to say "these are dialog buttons, so they should be arranged
> according to the user's prefs" and switch developers over to that API
> rather than to a hard-coded style.

I *believe* gtk2/pango handles reversing dialog button order and side 
depending on whether the language is left-to-right or right-to-left - I 
know it was supposed to, but I haven't confirmed it myself yet.

Julian

>