Re: [Usability] Re: Decision: instant apply window buttons

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

tis 2002-01-22 klockan 08.52 skrev Tuomas Kuosmanen:
>     > These are (3), which are not dialogs. They might be left open for
>     any length
>     > of time.
> 
>     Will that be the typical scenario? Most preference windows are large and
>     will get in the way if I (as a sighted user) leave them open. I think
>     it's safe to assume that the typical scenario for a lot of users will be
>     "open, make changes, dismiss", just like before.
> 
> For example, Gimp has a lot of small windows (tool options, palette,
> layers, etc that I keep open all the time) It would make me clicking
> close buttons all day if I didnt, since I need them most of the time.
> They are instant-apply too. And they are small, meant to be kept open.
> So does Photoshop and most of the graphics programs. As well as
> Staroffice/Openoffice "styles" palette on the word processor.

Lots of applications have "palettes" that are small and instant-apply.
That's not what's being discussed. The discussion is about instant-apply
application preference windows, and preference windows are in general
much bigger and not very useful to keep open all the time.

Also, palettes usually are only a complement to functionality that can
be accessed in other ways; they're usually only a convinient way to
access common operations. In most cases you can access the same tools
from menus and the like.

This is not true for preference windows. Usually there is only one of
them in any given application, and it has to be accessible since there
usually isn't any other accessible and alternate ways to accomplish the
same tasks that you would in the application's preference dialog.


Christian