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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] "Save ... before ..." dialogs: "Yes/No/Cancel" buttons for a

From: Ulf Lamping <ulf.lamping@xxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 22:04:20 +0200
Bill Meier wrote:
Guy Harris wrote:

The example in the GNOME HIG (figure 3.17 on the GNOME HIG page linked from my previous message) offers "Close without Saving", "Cancel", and "Save"; that seems to be their recommendation.

The KDE HIG offers "Save", "Discard", and "Cancel".

Microsoft's "Commit buttons for indirect dialog boxes" example offers "Save", "Don't Save", and "Cancel".

....

However, it might well be that, after you've used a desktop environment for a while, you respond to the wording sub-consciously, and you'd have to stop and think (even if only for a second) when confronted with an unfamiliar button label, so the label used for other apps in the same environment would be best.

Were we to do that, we could do that on Windows (as we can find out whether we're running on Windows at compile time), and (sort-of) do that on OS X ("sort-of" because, for now, we're building with the X11 version of GTK+, so, in theory, it could be running on OS X but displaying on a GNOME or KDE desktop), but KDE vs. GNOME vs. some other environment is trickier.


So: Given all of the above, I suggest using the Gnome-type dialogs for non-Windows and the Microsoft recommendation for Windows.

That is:
 Gnome
   "Save capture file before program quit?"
      "Quit without Saving", "Cancel", "Save"

   "Save capture file before closing it?"
      "Close without Saving", "Cancel", "Save"

   "Save capture file before starting a new capture?"
   "Save capture file before opening a new one?"
       "Continue without Saving", "Cancel", "Save"

   "Save the capture file before merging to another one?"
     "Cancel", "Save"   (was: "Cancel", "Ok")
     (Note: "Continue without Saving" is not a valid choice for this dialog)


  Windows:
   "Save", "Don't Save", "Cancel" for all but the 'Merge' dialog
"Save", "Cancel" for the 'Merge" dialog.

Comments ?
Well, the last suggestion (Save, Don't Save, Cancel) was better IMHO.

Being on KDE and seeing the buttons the "Gnome way" (namely the placement of the Cancel button) would be pretty strange. When I remember correct, we already have the strange dialog button placement - in the GTK provided dialogs, e.g. the file dialog ...

I'm a fan of the Gnome HIG, as it's well written and gives good advice. However, the GHIG advice on the dialog button placement is simply garbage IMHO - but that's obviously my personal point of view.

BTW: We don't do a Gnome platform distinction of dialog buttons so far and changing it in simply_dialog "only" will leave out a lot of dialogs/windows still keeping the "old way" (e.g. statistics windows/dialogs).

So if you really want to change the save dialog working like Gnome dialogs usually do (and only if WS really runs under Gnome, not under KDE and others), please change *all* WS dialogs to work that way - and we have a lot of them ;-)

Regards, ULFL