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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: UI Inconsistency OK APPLY buttons
From:       lists () astrojar ! org ! uk
Date:       2003-04-02 12:16:32
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On Tuesday 1 April 2003 18:30, Allan Sandfeld Jensen wrote:
> On Monday 31 March 2003 23:56, Ladislav Strojil wrote:
> > On Monday 31 March 2003 23:43, Martin Willers wrote:
> > > Intuitively, I wouldn't expect an "Apply"-button to actually +save+
> > > anything (ie. to file). - It just updates the application's current
> > > running-state. Only the "OK"-button makes this change persistent (ie.
> > > saves to config).
> >
> > Well, I expect the "Apply" button to apply the changes. This usually
> > includes writing them to some file. But it can also mean deleting
> > something, starting some application, rewriting something, you pick.
> > What you describe is really called "Preview" not apply, IMHO.
> >
> > Apply means (and always did) - "do the same thing as OK but do not close
> > this window".
> >
> If you have both an ok and apply button, pressing the apply button must
mean 
> that you havent ok'ed the changes yet, because then you would have pressed

> ok.
> 
> It's not a matter of consistency. It's just a consequence of having both
an ok 
> and apply button.

Logically, that is not a necessary conclusion. An alternative (which is the
one which is almost universally used currently) is: pressing the Apply
button means save what you have changed so far, but leave the dialog open so
that you can make further changes (which you can then discard if you make
mistakes, by using Cancel). OK means the same, but close the dialog as well.

I often use Apply in multi-tab dialogs, e.g. various KControl modules, when
I have completed the changes in each tab, to ensure that I don't have to
start all over again if I decide to revert changes in another later tab.

Anything else would lead to huge confusion, as I experienced using one
application which used Cancel to restore the original state. I thought that
an application bug caused my changes to be frequently lost. Only after
eventually reporting the problem as a bug did I find out that my use of
Accept followed by Cancel was the reason. The application has since been
changed to the more normal conventions.

--
David Jarvie.

 
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