[GUI] More points for the technical discussion

Wolfgang Thaller wolfgang.thaller@gmx.net
Tue, 18 Feb 2003 00:15:47 +0100


> So it seems that apple hasn't got a yesnocancel dialog. How do they
> costraint the programmer to put "cancel" on the left ? Is it just a
> convention?

They constrain the programmer to put the buttons in the proper place by 
threatening him with slow and painful death at the hands of hordes of 
angry users who clicked the wrong button because they didn't bother to 
read the button labels because they knew it was supposed to be in that 
place... in other words, yes, it's just a convention.

They do have a readymade Don't Save/Cancel/Save dialog.

The button ordering issue applies to all kinds of dialogs, and I think 
it's important for an application to feel "right", so we will still 
need a general solution. I'm thinking of something like a "button box" 
widget that automatically places buttons. You'd say that you have one 
OK button, one Cancel button, and one button that doesn't fit in any of 
those two categories, and the library would place the buttons 
appropriately.

Cheers,

Wolfgang