Re: Default button in dialogs

[Julian Missig <julian jabber org>]

On 31 May 2001 23:07:08 +0100, colin z robertson wrote:
> On Thu, May 31, 2001 at 03:50:17PM -0400, Julian Missig wrote:
> > On 31 May 2001 20:33:56 +0100, colin z robertson wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 31, 2001 at 05:11:06AM -0500, Gregory Joseph Merchan
> > > wrote:
> > > > Presently there are two competing proposed guidelines for dialog boxes:
> > > > 
> > > > http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~s.robertson/software/ui-guide/html/dialog-guidelines.html
> > > > 
> > > > http://www.delanet.com/~jkmissig/interface-guide.txt
> > > > 
> > > > As a contributor to the latter I clearly favor it, though the former looks nicer and makes some excellent points with regard to modality.
> > > 
> > > I'd very much like to see these two documents reconciled and one of
> > > them declared official (or official-ish). The current state of dialogs
> > > in GNOME is horribly inconsistent. Unfortunately, being the author of
> > > the first document, I don't want the differences resolved in the same
> > > way that you do.
> > > 
> > 
> > Well, I want to get this resolved before gtk2 is released so that we can
> > get the changes into pango and gtk2 for the dialogs. So let's start off
> > with what we *do* agree on:
> > 
> > Esc should be equivalent to "Cancel" or the closest thing to that in a
> > dialog.
> > 
> > Enter should activate the default button. (Although we disagree on which
> > button should be default, I believe we agree on this)
> 
> Both of these are already covered by my document.

Right, I was making sure we agreed on each of these.

> 
> > Space and any other key should *not* activate the default button. (This
> > has not been discussed, but it's *extremely* annoying to be in the
> > middle of typing, have a dialog pop up, and activate the default when
> > you press space)
> 
> hmm. This is an interesting one. Space should activate whichever
> widget currently has the focus. If the only focusable widget on the
> dialog is the default button then the dialog will have to be posted
> with the focus on that button. (It may well be reasonable to say that
> in general the buttons should not be given the focus if there are
> other focusable widgets on the dialog.)
> 
> As I see it, this use of space is non-negotiable. We can't change the
> near-universal rules of widget activation just for the very occasional
> inconvenience that it may cause. And it certainly can't be changed
> only in this one special case.
> 
> As for other alphanumeric keys, no, they shouldn't activate a button.
> Buttons should only be activated by Alt combinations and by enter and
> escape (have I missed any others?).
> 

Yeah, as I posted later, I wasn't thinking when I added this one, sorry.
Space should definitely activate the widget.

> 
> > Dialog buttons should have keyboard shortcuts (By using Alt+dominant
> > letter in the name, which can be accomplished in gtk by making the label
> > something like "_Save" or "_Cancel")
> 
> This isn't in my document at the moment, and there was a good reason
> for that: All controls should have accelerators, and I had intended to
> add a section to the full guidelines document covering general
> principles such as these.
> 
> Since time is pushing us in the direction of making a series of
> separate documents, perhaps I should rethink that.
> 

So we do agree that buttons should have accelerators, then.

> 
> > 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.

http://gabber.sf.net/interface/interface-guide.html has example images.

Julian
-- 
email: julian jabber org
jabber:julian jabber org