On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 7:45 AM, Douglas Philips <[email protected]> wrote: > On or about 2009 Mar 15, at 2:55 AM, TK Soh indited: >> >> On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 5:05 AM, Douglas Philips <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Contrast this with how many of the other THg dialogs work: >>> Bring up an annoying "Oh, are you _SURE_ you want to do that?" >>> confirmation dialog >>> Bring up an annoying "look what that command just did" post- >>> command confirmation dialog. >>> >>> Those annoyances, I keep telling myself, are just because THg is < 1.0 >>> and getting user interface design right is hard... At least, I hope >>> that is why they are there... >> >> No. These annoying confirmation dialogs are there make sure we don't >> make stupid mistake, which may not be recovered. > > I was afraid that was going to be the answer.
Because it is. > The problem is that after just a few times of using the GUI, clicking > through those dialogs becomes automatic while remaining annoying. And that > means they aren't protecting/helping any more. > > For more details on why confirmation dialogs don't help when they are > pervasive, see: > http://www.asktog.com/columns/069ScottAdamsMeltdown.html > (specifically "Error Four: Confirmation Substituted for Undo") > > and: > > http://books.google.com/books?id=04cFCVXC_AUC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=confirmation+dialog+considered+bad&source=bl&ots=jfwiT8n5sP&sig=YKxvd_HWhSfOGpXI3jx2eTJqsrs&hl=en&ei=UYK8ScKOApiWMfqCzZcI&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA67,M1 > Thanks for posting those links. I hope I can find time to read them later. > THg's dialogs are inconsistent. (I am not going to make a laundry list here, > these are just some examples) > The synch dialog box gets this right, the results of the > incoming/outgoing/push/pull commands are always just there, no annoying > separate dialogs with the results, just there. > The history/log viewer has some sub dialogs (for checking out different > changesets) that are annoying. > > I was serious when I said that good design is hard. Hopefully the GSoC this > year and perhaps some of my own feeble efforts can try to remove the > inconsistencies and annoyances (so long as the actual risk of mistakes > doesn't get worse). Everyone knows the GUI in TortoiseHg, confirmation dialogs or otherwise, desperately need to be improved, so I am not going spend time on that. Do bear in mind, many features in the tortoisehg were implemented in a hurry, with the goal to at least provide as many basic features as possible, in order to make tortoisehg _usable_. I apologize if some may feel of ridiculously bad quality, but with the amount of help I got, it's next to a miracle to be able to release the first version of TortoiseHg. But that's all history now. At least for me. As far as confirmation dialogs go, as annoying as they may be, they serve as protection. Some of them might a little overkill, but for a careless user like me, I'd rather tolerate some level of annoyance then getting bitten by mistakes. Yes, some users can click really fast without reading the warnings to defeat it's purpose, but the application needs to act in good conscience and provide the advices. The 'hg revert' command used to revert everything by default, which has troubled many. Perhaps the --all option was added reluctantly, but I certainly feel much safer after that. Personally, I don't like to deal with those dialog as much as anyone like to. Right now, I will just need to wait for someone to come up with some really bright idea. Hopefully soon. And makes everyone happy. Why wait for GSoC? I am sure Steve will be more than happy to accept your patches. TK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Apps built with the Adobe(R) Flex(R) framework and Flex Builder(TM) are powering Web 2.0 with engaging, cross-platform capabilities. Quickly and easily build your RIAs with Flex Builder, the Eclipse(TM)based development software that enables intelligent coding and step-through debugging. Download the free 60 day trial. http://p.sf.net/sfu/www-adobe-com _______________________________________________ Tortoisehg-develop mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tortoisehg-develop
