Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!tank!gargoyle!dawyd
From: dawyd@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (David Walton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Handling default button disable/hiliting in modal dialogs
Message-ID: <1041@gargoyle.uchicago.edu>
Date: 27 May 90 01:33:13 GMT
References: <9444@tank.uchicago.edu> <7402@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <30451@ut-emx.UUCP>
Reply-To: dawyd@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (David Walton)
Distribution: usa
Organization: U. Chicago Computing Organizations, Academic and Public Comp.
Lines: 45


In article <9444@tank.uchicago.edu> gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes:
>1) In my dialog, when the user has blanked out certain editable text fields, or
hasn't filled anything in, I deactivate the default button (gray it out).  Is
>the standard user interface guidelines to gray out the 3 pixel border
>surrounding the default button also?  I thought it was, but lots of apps,
>including some from Apple, seem to leave it black.

In article <30451@ut-emx.UUCP> rdd@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Robert Dorsett) writes:>

>Actually, there are two, more preferable, alternatives:
>
>(1) don't draw the outline circle at all, or erase it.  Doesn't make sense to
>have it, if the item isn't available.
>
>(2) reassign the default button to something else (i.e., cancel).
>
>Novice users would be better served by (1); those who are terminally keyboard-
>bound would prefer (2).  

I disagree with your conclusion.  If there _is_ a default action, it
should be made known to the user at all times.  A real novice user, in
fact, might be more confused if the button were to be hilited by
something he or she did ('Why did it do that?  Did I break it?').

The second suggestion makes more sense to me.  If there's a default
action, it should remain available at all times (at least in my
off-the-cuff estimation).  The default may change, ala Word 4.0's
Spelling dialog box, but the default action should always be
available.  The only case I can think of offhand where this isn't true
is where there's only one action available, and completing that action
requires input from the user.  An example would be the dialog boxes
that programs like MacWrite put up when run for the first time, asking
the using to personalize the copy.  Clearly, you want some response
from the user before going on.

I don't recall what Robert said the dialog box was for originally.
Depending on what he was doing with it, he might want to consider
changing the default button, as suggested in 2 above.

-- 

David Walton		Internet: dwal@tank.uchicago.edu
University of Chicago   {  Any opinions found herein are mine, not  }
Computing Organizations {  those of my employers (or anybody else). }