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From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: The Great Standard Yes/No/Cancel Alert Contest
Message-ID: <8508@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 12 Sep 89 19:25:14 GMT
References: <24871@santra.UUCP> <8461@hoptoad.uucp> <25123@santra.UUCP> <8502@hoptoad.uucp> <1370@speedy.mcnc.org>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 23

In article <1370@speedy.mcnc.org> kk@mcnc.org.UUCP (Krzysztof Kozminski) writes:
>Funny, I remember doing my alert boxes accordingly to the specs and they
>do say "save, discard, cancel".  But I can't find these in the IM either.
>
>BTW, I find it useful to include one more button: 'save as', for those
>occasions whent quitting is done in panic and the user doesn't really want
>to overwrite an existing file but would like to save the results anyway.

Um, a good idea, but again, what's really important in the standardization
is that the buttons be in the proper relative positions.  In familiar code
people often navigate purely by the overall graphic layout.  If you start
moving the buttons around in this standard alert then you risk confusing
the user.  Still, I can't deny that your feature is a good one; I'm just
wondering how to put it in without disrupting the dialog's appearance.
Sigh -- yet another power/clarity tradeoff.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
 The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
 The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
 The nakedness of woman is the work of God."
    - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"