Settings Human Interface Guidelines first draft online

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

> -----Original Message-----
> > +1
> > We should really start getting rid of the old "OK/Cancel" stuff.
> > OK/Cancel might be easier to implement than undo/redo, but it just
> > feels so oldschool today.
> >
> 
> again, that's not a good reason.
> 
> we should rather ask ourselves is it a good pattern?
> if it always is or rather if it is in certain cases and less in others?

Agreed, I need to give better reasons.

> being able to undo whether is possible is of course good, I would
advocate in
> any case asking for confirmation whether the action is potentially
scary.

Well, I'm still not sure about that, but even if we agree to always ask
for
confirmation for potentially "scary" actions: How is changing a setting
scary???
Only irreversible actions are dangerous. And if changing a setting is
irreversible,
something is _deeply_ flawed.
Some config dialogs contain actions like resetting a database or
something.
Those might be irreversible and thus dangerous.
That's why I've written in the HIG:
"Use buttons to execute actions like clearing a cache or re-initiating a
database. 
If the action is irreversible with potential loss of important data, ask
for confirmation 
before executing the action."
This should never ever be true for changing settings, though. So asking
for 
confirmation for that simply does not make sense.

And, to be honest: The fact that you have to click "Apply" for every
single
change in KCMs is something that has very often annoyed the hell out of
me.
I would never ever get the idea of clicking "apply" before switching to
another
settings module if it were not for the really annoying "Your changes have
not been 
saved yet" dialog. This never was a good design decision and never will
be.
I always regarded it as technically necessary, so I lived with it. But it
never made
sense to me form a user's or designer's standpoint.
So if there is any chance to get rid of that, we should do it.

> on examples of this undo functionality gone bad, does anybody actually
uses
> the trashcan in the desktop? I yet have to meeto somebody that does,
either
> always keeps it empty (that is, discarding the undo history too often)
or
> leaves tons of crap in it to the point becomes impossible to find
something in
> it.

The trashcan has been adopted by all relevant desktop systems, so it seems
to have worked there. I don't think that exact metaphor makes sense in the
mobile environment, but that does not mean that undo/redo by itself is a
bad thing.

> while on a text editor it works beautifully, just to say different
contexts
> requires different patterns.

Different patterns, yes. But having to click "apply" for the click of a
checkbox
to take effect is definitely not a good pattern.