Re: [Usability] Text for select pattern dialog

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On Jul 11, 2006, at 4:01 AM, Christian Neumair wrote:
> Am Montag, den 10.07.2006, 17:39 +1200 schrieb Matthew Paul Thomas:
> ...
> > *   The gap between the "Pattern:" label and the field should be 6px.
> >      (It looks as though the label is centered when it should be
> >      right-aligned.)
>
> Aren't 12 px correct?

Oops, so it is -- I misremembered the bit about "multiples of 6px". 
Anyway, the current spacing seems to be 27px. :-)

> > *   The keyboard equivalents for Cancel and OK should be Escape and
> >      Enter, not C and O.
>
> Pressing enter resp. escape issues the expected actions (confirmation
> vs. cancellation), so what's wrong with these accelerators?

What's wrong with them is that:
*   It's bad to have more than one similarly accessible way of doing
    the same thing (e.g. two keyboard equivalents), because it makes
    people dither.
*   Following the visual example of those stock buttons, many app
    developers create dialogs where Cancel and the affirmative button
    have letter-based equivalents but *don't* respond to Escape and
    Enter. (Examples of this problem exist in Evolution, Gimp, and
    Rhythmbox, to name just three.)
*   Letter-based equivalents can't be consistent across dialogs,
    because the affirmative button text differs across dialogs.

The end result is that for any given dialog in Gnome, you have to look 
hard to see how to accept it or cancel it with the keyboard. This is 
not a problem in Windows or Mac OS, where the keyboard equivalent is 
always Escape for the Cancel button, and (except in highly dangerous 
situations or multi-line text fields) always Enter for the affirmative 
button.

> Cancel/OK are stock items, so these should be kept consistent, right?
> ...

Every app developer says that, but then nobody fixes the problem with 
the stock buttons. :-(

--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/