Settings Human Interface Guidelines first draft online

[Marco Martin]

On Wednesday 04 January 2012, Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> > -----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???

most settings wouldn't be no (the date/time ones works quite well currently i 
think), what would be scary is what can cause any kind of data loss.
things like network setting where a wrong preference can send the device 
offline is a bit on the edge.

> Only irreversible actions are dangerous. And if changing a setting is
> irreversible,
> something is _deeply_ flawed.

usually are not irreversible, but may be not obvious to remember how to get 
back (like a forgotten wifi key)


> 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.

as far i remember the reason that nobody ever tried to change this was not 
only technical, there was a bit of discussion at the time and was decided not 
worth. unfortunately that's all i managed to get back from the sands of time:

http://weblog.obso1337.org/2008/implicit-save/

-- 
Marco Martin