I've used Legacy happily for about 5 years, but always find one of its characteristics to be really inconvenient: Unlike many other applications I use, Legacy dialog boxes are modal; i.e., they temporarily halt the program, and the user cannot continue until the dialog has been closed. This means, for example, when a search list is created it can't be parked at the side of the screen and referred to while work is done in the parent window. And if filling in a modal dialog requires access to the parent window, you must close the dialog, find the information in the parent window, and then open the dialog again. Modal dialogs show information in a series (one lot of information at a time) and not in parallel (all the information you need to see at once). Parallel allow the user to choose what to look at, but in serial you are pretty much forcing him or her to pick an option.
Obviously some kinds of dialogs must be modal, such as selecting a file to open or warnings such as confirming a deletion. My understanding is that modals are also easier to program, because the programmer doesn't have to be concerned whether making decisions in multiple screens could cause conflicts. But there are ways around this. I couldn't find references to this issue in the forum archives; does anyone know whether there's a good reason for using modal dialogs so often? Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
