Re: [libreoffice-design] Proposition to combine the Apply/Reset buttons

Hi Octavio, all!

Thanks for joining this discussion :-)

Am Dienstag, den 26.04.2011, 11:28 -0700 schrieb Octavio Alvarez:
> On Tue, 19 Apr 2011 05:56:40 -0700, Sparkling Specks  
> <heinzlesspam@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > In the upcoming 3.4 release there will be an additional button in
> > dialogs, "Apply," to apply changes made in dialogues without closing
> > the dialogue. This new button means that now there are five or six
> > buttons on the bottom of many properties dialogs, "OK," "Apply,"
> > "Cancel," "Reset," ("Default"), "Help."
>
> Yes, please, let's simplify this.
>
> > In an attempt to cut that number down again, I want to propose
> > combining the Apply and Reset buttons. There's a bug about that here:
> > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36112 , an animation to
> > show the feature (
> > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=45456 ) is attached to
> > the bug -- please excuse its amateurish execution.
>
> I like the mockup at
>
> http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/PropertiesButtonLayout
>
> It moves [Help] to the left. It doesn't have anything to do with any
> kind of action the user is trying to achieve, and the more the user
> learns, the less helpful the button is. So let's move it out of the
> way, to the left.

Still in discussion, because it's currently against our numerous old
dialogs ...

> Also, the [Default] button is moved to the organizer. There's where
> it should be. It appears that, under that mockup, the user can
> remove individual attributes, so a [Default] button, or whatever
> is named, could shamelessly clear all attributes.
>
> Also, [Revert], can be removed in favor of making the dialog work with
> Undo/Redo.

We've talked about that earlier, but it might be helpful for any direct
formatting (e.g. paragraph formatting) and essential for styles (e.g.
paragraph styles).

Why? Because use a dialog to format a bunch of things, or to iterate
some settings. Providing them "Revert" helps to form a logical step -
all changes made when the dialog was open / has been used on a certain
object. But this should be checked with real users ... or at least with
a prototype, if we can't solve it by exchanging thoughts.

If the "lessbuttonsapproach" dialog can be used for styles (I still
think whether it will work at all), then "Revert" might be essential.
People will rather set back a value (e.g. font size) instead of using
the faaar away undo button - but this sets a real value instead of (in
most cases) inherit the value from the parent style.

> You can only "cancel" by pressing 'Escape'. If you want to use the mouse,
> Undo as many times as needed. I like that.
>
> I would only add an [Apply] button before [Close] and NOT auto-apply
> whatever mistake I make on the dialog. It is bad for performance.
> It is also not scalable. The longer the document, the longer it will
> take for _every_ _single_ _change_.

Please see:
http://www.mail-archive.com/design@libreoffice.org/msg01615.html


Mmh, sorry, I have to stop the good discussions today ... you see in
half an hour what I'm referring to :-)

Regards,
Christoph


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