Re: A matter of principle [Re: HIGification of dialog boxes]

[Krzysztof Foltman <kfoltman portal onet pl>]

Alan Horkan wrote:

> There are far too many developers who willfully exclude users with crap
> hardware. With more and more handhelds, laptops and tablets coming along
> it is totally reckless to exclude yourself from these potential users.

As for handhelds, I'd vote for a special low-resolution screen 
scaled-down version of Dia (or any other app), not for optimizing Dia 
for low resolutions (which only benefits a minority of handheld users at 
cost of desktop users' convenience). Running a desktop app on a handheld 
is usually a disaster. Early WinCE machines (yes, I own two) suffered 
from that problem - despite they simplified the apps themselves a lot, 
they still had a huge OS bloat which made the whole thing a slow, 
unreliable, battery-hungry piece of junk.

Anyway, my rambling aside, it would be nice to have some alternatives 
for CSDI and the "main menu as a popup triggered by one mouse button and 
another menu as context menu triggered by another mouse button" horror.

So far, I see the following alternatives:

1. SDI app.

One file = one window with menu. Toolbox etc are in a separate window 
(maybe shared between various document windows, Abiword doesn't share 
toolbars from different documents and it looks a bit unnatural to me). 
Toolbox has its menu removed, and the menu content is moved to the main 
window. Toolbox can be docked inside the document window. Optionally, 
the document window can be made fullscreen (the toolbox is still framed 
or docked). Right click brings the context menu, middle click... I think 
I already found some use for it ;)

Some space is wasted (for main menu and optional toolbar) but it seems 
acceptable.

SDI (with toolbox sharing or without) is recommended by HIG.

2. MDI app (tabbed or windowed etc).

There's one main window with all documents open in it. Toolbox may be a 
separate window or may be docked inside the main window.

Space wasted: menu, optional toolbar, some document switching mechanism 
(like tabs).

Discouraged by HIG (which makes sense, unless editing multiple documents 
at once is a rule and fast document switching is a benefit, like in 
Anjuta :-) ).

3. ...? (anyone?)

Note: SDI doesn't mean "no always-on-top toolbar".

As for Try (vs Apply)- it suggests (more clearly than Apply) that it's a 
temporary choice you can revert by clicking Cancel.

As for Format menu (instead of double click etc) - good idea. Maybe an 
"Apply to current object" button in the toolbox. Maybe the "style 
repository". Dunno, really.

>     Instant apply with Revert/Undo button, maybe ? (I don't know if it's
>     kosher HIG-wise, but it may be nice/useful)

    You would use the application Undo stack.

I *wouldn't*. Undo button in the default line width dialog box shouldn't 
modify anything except what's related to default line width. Otherwise, 
it may get confusing. Unless you meant using application Undo stack, but 
restricting Undo only to operations related to the default line width 
(etc) - but when the window is modeless, things get scary (what if the 
user first selects a width, then draws a line, then presses Undo in the 
dialog box?).

Krzysztof

(phew, Mozilla's editor messed up the mail layout a bit)