Re: [Usability] Re: RFE - API change from GtkMessageDialog to GtkAlert

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Tue, Nov 27, 2001 at 08:35:02AM -0500, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> 
> Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu> writes: 
> > We still have the problem that it doesn't distinguish between primary
> > and secondary buttons... We'd like alternate actions to be spaced away
> > from the primary two buttons a little.
> 
> We added gtk_button_box_set_child_secondary() at your request a long
> time ago.

Yes. Unless I'm mistaken, what he means is changing from:

| (  Help  )          ( Altern )  ( Cancel ) ((   OK   )) |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
                                 ^-----v-----^
                                        \_ same space (modulo default
                                                        indicator)

 to:

| (  Help  )        ( Altern )    ( Cancel ) ((   OK   )) |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
                                ^-- little space
 or:

| (  Help  )      ( Altern )      ( Cancel ) ((   OK   )) |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
              ^-------v-------^
                       \_ same space

I'm not sure this is necessary. Alerts should not have a Help button
and can use the secondary area for spacing as I showed before:


|                 ( Altern )      ( Cancel ) ((   OK   )) |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
 \_______________/\        \______/                       /
        (1)        \          (2)                        /
                    \___________________________________/
                                      (3)
These spaces are from:
(1) the bounds of the icon which would run to the bottom of the window.
(2) the use of the secondary area
(3) the width of the text in the alert.

We may have other problems with some alerts due to the homogeneous size
of the button box buttons. I'll look into this before I file a report.

I'm not sure what dialogs might have alternatives other than Help.
    [ Note: Dialogs are considered distinct from
            Alerts and Assistants (a.k.a. Druids) ]

Some may be thinking of an Apply button as filling this role. For that,
 I and some others would like to see dialogs which might have had 
 Apply changed to instant-apply utility windows.

"Find" or "Find and Replace" are often treated as dialogs. I suspect that but
for the simplest cases, they should be treated as utility windows.

(time passes)
I checked on-line. There are some in the Gimp that might benefit from a
special area for alternate actions. OTOH, this might indicate that a redesign
would be better. (See the print dialog.)

Cheers,
Greg Merchan