> Finally, permit me to quibble with the proposal to "keep the current behavior > as default". I think it's a bad default. It violates the principle of > "don't surprise the user". If the user can't interact with a portion of the > UI, that portion shouldn't be painted in a way that invites the user to push > buttons, click checkboxes, fill in blanks, or whatever.
In general, I agree with this. But I'm not sure how far a UI toolkit should go towards enforcing it. For example, consider the case where a modal dialog is opened over another window. The user can't interact with any controls in the main window, yet they don't paint a disabled state. Alternatively, a UI designer may want to paint a semi-transparent overlay over a container to show that it is disabled, rather than having each subcontrol paint its own disabled state. So there are arguably cases where this behavior may not be desirable. I actually don't know what the "right" answer is in this case. Maybe there isn't one. Definitely worth more thought/discussion. G
