Not OK
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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons? I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions. They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense. OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
In (my corner of) the Linux world, "apps" generally have action buttons in dialogs, but things like settings are often updated on-the-fly without an extra click. I'm comfortable with that. veering OT to rant territory... My current gripe is a Windows app I use at Fire Control. Double click the desktop icon, fine. Logon splash window opens. Username box highlighted, Ibeam there. Start typing. NOTHING HAPPENS! Window isn't focused. :mad: That app has so many UI fails it's unbelievable it got so far in the market.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons? I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions. They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense. OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons?
Programming is an art, and like anything creative... it depends. One of the worst user design experiences is when people use modals for everything. You sneeze... bam... modal! It can take you out the flow and can be tedious. For instance, Did you really mean to close the app? when there's no data to save. What a waste of a click. And what about for a settings dialog? Does it really have to be atomic? More times than not, you won't make a mistake. And if you did, you can mindlessly click OK with the same mistake. Just the auto save per field means less work. You could make the argument that at least clicking the OK button gives some sorta feeling the setting was saved, and that's true. But it's not much of an indication since most people use that to mean "close" the dialog. But it's context dependent. If you intend to do an action that's assumed and have a way to recover from it and also let the user _intelligently_ know what happened without disturbing their flow... it's not a bad thing. If you never ask for an atomic confirmation at all... ever... it's a bad thing. It just all depends.
Jeremy Falcon
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons?
Programming is an art, and like anything creative... it depends. One of the worst user design experiences is when people use modals for everything. You sneeze... bam... modal! It can take you out the flow and can be tedious. For instance, Did you really mean to close the app? when there's no data to save. What a waste of a click. And what about for a settings dialog? Does it really have to be atomic? More times than not, you won't make a mistake. And if you did, you can mindlessly click OK with the same mistake. Just the auto save per field means less work. You could make the argument that at least clicking the OK button gives some sorta feeling the setting was saved, and that's true. But it's not much of an indication since most people use that to mean "close" the dialog. But it's context dependent. If you intend to do an action that's assumed and have a way to recover from it and also let the user _intelligently_ know what happened without disturbing their flow... it's not a bad thing. If you never ask for an atomic confirmation at all... ever... it's a bad thing. It just all depends.
Jeremy Falcon
Jeremy Falcon wrote:
And what about for a settings dialog? Does it really have to be atomic?
In some cases it is even worse if it is atomic. A good example is the drop-down for display resolution. You want to see the result right away. Same for colour selections and other UI adjustments. As you said: it all depends.
Mircea
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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons? I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions. They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense. OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
without an Enter key?
Just as long as it has a RETURN key -- as is only proper. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71vwNsgEi8L._AC_SL1500_.jpg[^] https://deskthority.net/wiki/images/9/90/LK501_top.jpg[^]
It's essential for a keyboard to have a RETURN key—just as it should.
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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons? I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions. They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense. OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Exactly which dialogs are you referring to? I have not seen this in any application that I use.
I've seen it on some settings dialogs... especially on Macs.
Jeremy Falcon
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I've seen it on some settings dialogs... especially on Macs.
Jeremy Falcon
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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons? I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions. They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense. OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
Chrome ushered in autosave as you go in settings. It does save from having to hunt for whatever button saves this stuff but I've gotten so used to it that unless it's catastrophic to do otherwise I have began to save fields onblur (leave) on my own creations and haven't been bit yet, so it just might be better than the way we had. :thumbsup:
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The question was specifically about Windows, so I would be interested to see which ones Richard A. is referring to.
For instance, windows update settings. You defer restart date simply by selecting from a drop down list. But if you want to change restart time, you need to select hour/minutes from drop-down/scrolling lists, and then click OK!!! (Windows 10)
Telegraph marker posts ... nothing to do with IT Phasmid email discussion group ... also nothing to do with IT Beekeeping and honey site ... still nothing to do with IT
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hmmm... I don't think I've seen that. Real Windows dialogs ? or a 3rd party app dialogs ? Modal or Modeless dialog ?
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
Many of the "settings" dialogs in Windows 11 have no "OK" button, IIRC. They are applied as soon as one makes a choice.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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The question was specifically about Windows, so I would be interested to see which ones Richard A. is referring to.
I can supply a couple of examples. One is the settings dialog box in Windows 10 and Windows 11. And the other, I just discovered, is the Launch Profile dialog box in Visual Studio 2022. It has no commit button and no discard button.
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Exactly which dialogs are you referring to? I have not seen this in any application that I use.
It's not even specific to Win11, even on Win10, if you try to change Mouse settings, for instance, change the primary button from left to right, the change takes effect immediately.
Cheers, Vikram.
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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons? I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions. They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense. OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
Welcome to the unified world of mobile and desktop. Huge wasted screen estate and jumbo titles were just the beginning. On mobile, there are no real choices. On desktop, however ...
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote:
How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons?
Programming is an art, and like anything creative... it depends. One of the worst user design experiences is when people use modals for everything. You sneeze... bam... modal! It can take you out the flow and can be tedious. For instance, Did you really mean to close the app? when there's no data to save. What a waste of a click. And what about for a settings dialog? Does it really have to be atomic? More times than not, you won't make a mistake. And if you did, you can mindlessly click OK with the same mistake. Just the auto save per field means less work. You could make the argument that at least clicking the OK button gives some sorta feeling the setting was saved, and that's true. But it's not much of an indication since most people use that to mean "close" the dialog. But it's context dependent. If you intend to do an action that's assumed and have a way to recover from it and also let the user _intelligently_ know what happened without disturbing their flow... it's not a bad thing. If you never ask for an atomic confirmation at all... ever... it's a bad thing. It just all depends.
Jeremy Falcon
For instance, Did you really mean to close the app? when there's no data to save. What a waste of a click.
With todays trends of fashion over function, I think confirmation is even more important. On modern Windows it is very difficult to se were one application ends and another starts when windows are on top of each other, so I often hit the wrong X and I'm grateful for the confirmation :)
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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons? I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions. They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense. OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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For instance, Did you really mean to close the app? when there's no data to save. What a waste of a click.
With todays trends of fashion over function, I think confirmation is even more important. On modern Windows it is very difficult to se were one application ends and another starts when windows are on top of each other, so I often hit the wrong X and I'm grateful for the confirmation :)
I've noticed this too. It's nearly impossible to get windows to have borders that are clearly visible. I really don't understand how this makes windows more usable...other than I've also noticed that many people never learned to use Windows and just full screen EVERYTHING.
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Many of the "settings" dialogs in Windows 11 have no "OK" button, IIRC. They are applied as soon as one makes a choice.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
I hadn't even noticed. I kind of like having the setting take place immediately, especially since I can easily undo it. Also, this isn't a new behavior for Windows Settings. For instance, the classic mouse control panel applet implements changes as soon as you make them and doesn't wait for an OK button. Now where I would draw the line is if the dialog has the classic Apply/Ok/Cancel buttons. Then it shouldn't make changes until Apply or Ok is clicked.
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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons? I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions. They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense. OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons? I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions. They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense. OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.
