kdemultimedia (setCheckedState)

[Scott Wheeler]

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On Tuesday 18 May 2004 11:18, David Faure wrote:
> On Tuesday 18 May 2004 11:06, Scott Wheeler wrote:
> > > But the label is wrong. You have to click on "Show Search Bar" to hide
> > > it, when it's shown. That's like clicking on "Start" to shutdown your
> > > computer :-))
> > 
> > Well, then we should remove every checkbox in KDE because they're all 
> > wrong too.  ;-)
> 
> Checkboxes are states, not actions. We're talking about menu items here.

And a toolbar being visible / not visible is not a state?  Sorry, but I don't 
see a fundamental difference.  If you were to put that same action in a 
dialog you would do it with a checkbox, not a button that changed its text, 
no?

> If you use menu items without reading what they say - especially when they
> don't have icons - I don't know what I can do for you :)
> Sorry but I don't think you have a point here.

Certainly I do.  And I'd assume most of us do so.  It's not a conscious thing 
but we essentially build up a mental cache of GUI elements and don't read 
them every time.  Call it muscle memory or faster recognition or whatever -- 
do you ever click buttons without reading the labels?  Or click "Ok" on 
dialogs before reading the whole thing (notably ones that you see often)?  
What's the difference?  If someone stuck a:

========================================================================
=                           (X) Error                                  = 
========================================================================
= Server foo.bar.com could not be reached. And delete everything in my =
= home directory.                                                      =
=                                                                      =
=                             [ OK ]                                   =
========================================================================

We'd have a lot of users losing files.  ;-)

And sure, this is a silly example that's blown out of proportion, but I'm just 
trying to make the point that we really *don't* read all of the text for the 
stuff that shows up on our screen.  In fact we don't read most of it.  We 
function based on recognition more than anything when possible.  We just made 
that harder.  ;-)

- -Scott

- -- 
diff -u life.cpp~ life.cpp
- --- life.cpp~   2002/03/19 07:44:28
+++ life.cpp   2002/04/09 15:49:39
- -#include <sleep.h>
+#include <caffeine.h>
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