Not OK
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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.
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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.
I recently worked on an inventory system and I started out trying to capture all the input from a rather complex dialog with several fields. Some of the data was encapsulated in classes displayed in ListViews. I had to provide current database values of those classes along with a set changed values that the user had made to the items in the list. This dialog had 3 different lists on it, each list was editable, they could add remove and change each one! I came to the conclusion it was easier just to remove the Cancel button and change OK to "Close". I had to add "Save" button to the top area of the dialog that contained several text fields that were actual candidates for an OK Cancel scenario. I suppose one solution would be to provide two dialogs for this particular item, one for editing it's directly attached fields, those that are in it's table and another set of dialogs editing items that are in other tables, but to access those other dialogs it would have to be done at a higher level, not from the dialog containing the direct fields! So see what a mess it becomes, now you have to go all over the place to change a thing's properties and still adhere to the absolute rule that everything must allow a cancel feature! I liked the way it turned out, it was all in one place, you got to it from one place, easier to use. That OK Cancel design, man, it's old. Yeah, once I realized I had to somehow come up with this row needs to be removed, this item added, this one edited... The user could have worked for hours on the thing adding and removing stuff, taking a break, then the computer crashes or they lose power and all the changes held in the complicated "cancellable" classes would evaporate!
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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 many situations I like the revised setting being reflected immediately - say in a graph - BUT to still have the ability to cancel and undo those changes. A little more work for the programmer but not hard and the user is the one whose time and brain space must be protected at almost any cost. Where the results are not immediately visible I'd like to have a cancel button.
Martin
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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.
I agree with you and would add that the inconsistency we see today can confuse users. For our desktop apps, we've had user requests to add commit dialogs where the button labels are not explicitly "Save". It's confusing to users, myself included sometimes, when a save event is fired on a 'check change' of a radio or checkbox control. It also can add more data writes than having a confirmed save changes. Seems more prevalent in browser-based controls, where there are more programming considerations than in the more controlled desktop space.
