RE: Document-based applications

["Murray Cumming" <murrayc usa net>]

Murray Cumming wrote:
> > * File|Exit
> >   Should show the 'File | Close' functionality for each
> document in turn,
> > bringing the document's instance to the foreground before doing so.

thristian wrote:
> No it shouldn't. It should bring up a summary window of all open
> documents, in a list, with a "Save and close" button, and a "Discard"
> button that apply to the items in the list, a "Don't exit" button that
> uses "Esc" as the shortcut key, and an "Exit" button that is default,
> but does not become enabled until every item in the list is dealt
> with. The list should be multi-select, so you can just select
> everything and "Save" or "Discard".

I think that this is still quite an unusual system, which not many
applications use. It is therefore not very tried and tested. I have tried to
identify some simple rules that are currently used by apps such as Gnumeric,
with the aim that other apps would at least be that good.

I'm not sure that it really solves any real problem, because people
typically don't have several unsaved documents open at one time. If you only
ever have 1 or 2 modified documents open then this dialog would just be
overly complicated. I guess it would be nice to show this more complicated
dialog if you have e.g. > 3 unsaved documents. But then people would be
surprised that the application suddenly started acting differently.

Murray Cumming
murrayc usa net
www.murrayc.com