Subject: Re: list dialog (was Re: Outstanding patches)
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Aug 27 2001 - 21:24:39 CDT
On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Joaquin Cuenca Abela wrote:
Hi Joaquin,
Great to hear form you.
> > At 12:17 PM 8/27/01 +1000, Martin Sevior wrote:
> > >Well Joaquin's the best person to answer about he is doing.
> >
> > Yep. That's what I'm trying to get him to do. :-)
>
> yes, I'm here I'm here... sorry for the delay :-)
>
> > >I've since
> > >changed my mind about the Lists dialog. I think our Modeless Lists dialog
> > >is a cool way to manipulate lists. I just want to make a few more tweaks.
> > >Specifially, replace the "%L" in the List delimeter entry with actual
> List
> > >label and leave the entry on either side for text before and after the
> > >label. But that is all.
> >
> > I think what you're saying here is that you really like the modeless
> > interaction for customizing and tweaking existing lists, right? Is your
> > objection just a modal vs. modeless thing, or is it something else?
> >
> > >My impression was that Joaquin was working on a Modal Lists dialog to
> > >replace the current bullets and numbering dialog.
>
> yes, but it should fire the old lists dialog when the user clicks in
> "customize".
>
> Anyway, Martin, to me the most important part is the gui of the dialog, and
> if it is a modal one or a non modal one is less important to me.
>
Good!
> <brief discussion>
> My thoughts about the modality of the dialogs are that if a dialog changes
> "visibly" when the insertion point changes, then (to me) it should be modal.
> Any other dialogs should be non modal.
>
> For instance, a search/replace dialog don't change its contents when the
> user moves the ip, so following this rule it should be non modal.
>
> A dialog to change the current font, change its contents when the user moves
> the ip (if the user switch from a text in "Times" to a text in "Arial", the
> dialog should change the font currently selected from "Times" to "Arial").
> So following this rule it should be modal. (imho a non modal dialog here
> only helps to confuse the user.)
> </brief discussion>
>
> That said, I can live with a non modal list's dialog. What I will not like
> is a "simple" list dialog "modal" and a "powerful" one "non modal". That
> will do no good for our users. It will only show that there are 2 developers
> that disagree on how the modality of the list dialog should be.
I agree exactly. This was one of my problems.
>
> So I think that the only question remaining is: do you think (as me) that a
> set of clickable (non modal, if you like them this way) previews are easier
> to use, and that fits better a "first" list dialog?
>
As long as the new dialog is non-Modal I think this would be great
provided we have the win32 and other platform developers to implement it.
Non-Unix programmers are a precious resource around here.
The current Win32 Lists dialog languished for 6 months before it finally
got to the stage of being usable.
Cheers
Martin
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