Re: [Usability] HIG: File New/Open/Quit, etc.

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

I am surprised that nobody has an opinion about this. I was worried
about bike-shedding.

On Tue, 2009-03-24 at 09:23 +0100, Murray Cumming wrote:
> I'd like the HIG to contain some simple suggestions for document-based
> applications that are not tabbed. I'd like to avoid general conceptual
> stuff about document-centric UI models, however. I'd also like to stick
> to UI rather than implementation for now.
> 
> This could deal with some inconsistencies and deal with the problem that
> most of these document windows currently behave differently if opened
> from the Applications menu or from the application's File menu.
> 
> 
> Are there objections to the HIG saying this, in the appropriate
> sections?:
> 
> 0. An application is "document-based" if it loads and saves documents.
> 
> 1. Document-based applications should have File/New, File/Open,
> File/Save, and File/Save As menu items.
> 1.1 File/New and File/Open should open new application windows (if not
> using tabs), if the current document is empty and unmodified.
> 1.2 File/Open should check if the chosen document is already open in the
> application. If so, it should bring the window to the front. The
> application may ask the user if he wishes to open a second window for
> the document. Show suggested UI for that.
> 1.3 The same check and UI should happen when opening a file in any other
> way, such as from the file manager.
> 
> 2. Document-based applications should have a File/Quit menu item. This
> should close only the current document window. It should not close all
> document windows open by the application.
> 2.1 Should it be called File/Close instead? Do we want both the Close
> and Quit keyboard shortcuts to activate this menu item, to avoid
> annoying people with the change.
> 2.2. If there are unsaved changes in the document, the application
> should ask the user if they wish to save the changes. Show a suggested
> UI for that, because these are currently very inconsistent.
> 
> 3. The application should _not_ list its open document windows in a
> Documents or Windows menu.
> 
> 
-- 
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
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