Has (parameter) editing the concepts of shopping?

[Friedrich W. H. Kossebau]

Am Freitag, 3. März 2006 17:28, schrieb Diego Moya:
> On 03/03/06, Gábor Lehel <illissius at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/3/06, Ellen Reitmayr <ellen at kde.org> wrote:
> > > On OpenUsability, Stefan Monov suggested to promote the usage of
> > > instant apply instead of explicit apply in certain situations in KDE
>
> an improved workflow, instant apply has the additional advantage of
> *forcing* the system to have an undo facility (which is good for the
> user, as it allows an exploratory use of the interface). The worse
> part of "Apply" buttons is that they are destructive - once used, you
> can never recover the previous state. I'll always prefer a "Revert all
> changes" button to an "Apply" one in a dialog.

While the "Revert all changes" should make clear that it refers to the changes 
since the start of the parameter editor, not the changes to the global 
defaults (done only optional).*
And wouldn't it improve the usability if the changes to global/default 
settings and prior to the dialog could be highlighted some way (font style, 
color, icon) in the dialog so ones gets visual feedback what she has done 
since (present in the mental model anyway)?
And then offer to revert not only all, but also individual changes, to before 
or global/default?**
I think this would be pretty handy (so valid as usable?).

From all the years helping and watching fellows and family I draw that "Apply" 
is used and expected for "Test not only in preview if available but in the 
reality" while it works like "Save". Always big disappoinment with "Cancel" 
then. This is enforced by the "Ok" which makes "Apply" look to be more 
different from it then only additional closing the dialog/editor, so giving 
feed to the "Test" expectation.

So a redesign of dialogs/parameter editor framework should take into account 
what users need and expect from it (bring in the use cases :).
My expectations:
* Need for Instant(=automatically) apply(=test) as option which gets greyed 
out if too expensive (giving consistence), otherwise on demand ("Test").
* "Ok" will be "Am done, all fine now", storing the current state and closing.
* "Apply" divides to both "Would this work?"("Test") and "keep this, now for 
the rest"("Apply/Save"), but it the last needed? Should be mutually exclusive 
with "Ok", "Ok" for one time dialogs, "Save/Apply" for enduring dialogs.
* Changing complete sets of parameters, with import/export.
* Reverting to previous states of parameters in the editing history.
* "Cancel" is "forget it, let's get back to where I was", only for one time 
dialogs, dropping the current changes and returning to what was before 
opening the dialog.

There is a lot of similarity to going shopping... Transfering those concepts 
could work perhaps, what do you think? 

*Elaborated: Local Undo/Redo in the dialog (parameters editor), grain could be 
every completed single parameter change. Sounds complex but users cope with 
the same principles in normal editors pretty fine as I experience., so it 
should work in dialogs, too.

**The perfect parameter framework would even offer to save any parameter sets 
as profiles, cmp. e.g. today's kcontrol's appearance/colors. So such 
parameter "themes" could be easily exchanged.

Regards
Friedrich
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