Style Guide issues (was:Re: kdenetwork/kmail)

[Marc Mutz]

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On Monday 12 August 2002 09:06, Thomas Zander wrote:
> On Monday 12 August 2002 01:31, Marc Mutz wrote:
> > kdenetwork/kmail kmmainwin.cpp,1.501,1.502
> > Author: mutz
> >
> >
> > Modified Files:
> >          kmmainwin.cpp
> > Log Message:
> > CCMAIL: 46369-done at bugs.kde.org, kde-core-devel at kde.org
> > Why does _warning_ContinueCancel default to Continue??
>
> I remember a discussion prior to the release of 3.0 where the logout
> dialog had the same question.

I remeber this, too. There, it's different though. The whole screen 
changes and I for one am shocked enough to not hit Enter everytime I 
see this and hadn't intended to hit the logout. Plus, you see it every 
single day and you don't loose data provided the opened apps do proper 
session management.

An ordinary confirmation dialog, however, is different: The normal 
confirmation dialog is shown rather seldomly. If it was shown 
frequently, it would have "don't ask again" functionality, so the user 
could get rid of the query.

So, IMO, the rule of thumb should be:
1. If the dialog is expected to be used seldomly or the action is 
queries confirmation for is very destructive, default to cancel.
2. If the dialog is used freqeuntly and the associated action can e.g. 
be undone (CTRL-Z or by hand) relatively easy, then default to 
Continue.

> FWIW; one confirmation diag is enough IMO, so the default in KMail
> should be set to continue.
>
> Opinions?

Traditionally, the KMail choice was to defult to the non-destructive 
taks and provide "don't ask again" for the cases where it is likely to 
annoy users.

Marc

- -- 
Mutig warf sich die kleine Überwachungskamera zwischen Täter Opfer!
                                        --Rena Tangens / FoeBuD e.V.
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