Mimi Yin wrote:
This primarily because traditionally in web UIs, there is NO notion of focus (except for for text fields). So in order to use the keyboard, browsers needed to come up with visual feedback to tell the user where the keyboard focus was at all times. In other words, the dotted outline was created to compensate for a lack in web UIs.
Actually, there's a pretty well-established idea of focus for all types of form elements in Web UIs that goes back pretty far. (Just as an example, the JavaScript 'onFocus' method was originally implented back in JavaScript 1.0 -- circa Netscape 2.0, in 1995.)
In fact, Internet Explorer always had a lot of issues with using form elements on z-indexed layers because the browser actually used the Windows system widgets (i.e., select boxes, radio buttons and so on) for form elements (which made them always show on top of everything else). Focus in IE behaves the same way as it does in the OS -- same dotted selection/focus lines.
Given that, I think I'm comfortable muddling with this web convention a bit and using our own visual syntax to communicate focus. I think for most things, the dotted outline is actually too subtle to capture your attention. On a crowded calendar filled with lozenges, I'm not sure I could locate the dotted outline very easily.
Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't break with convention, but it's not really just a Web convention. Putting a dotted line around something to indicate focus or a selection is pretty universal -- e.g., the 'marching ants' in Photoshop, the dotted selection rectangle around selected folders and files in Windows Explorer, etc.
If we can think of something else equally effective to indicate 'tentative' that doesn't conflict with something that pervasive, it would be less confusing to end-users, IMO. However if we are tapped out of ideas, I don't believe it would cause so much consternation as to make the app unusable. I don't think we'll see people freaking out an protesting in the streets that their tentative events look selected. :)
Matthew _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Open Source Applications Foundation "Design" mailing list http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/design
