On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Erik Buck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I bring this up because I ran across another application today that took the > advice of using more informative verbs for button labels. I tried to cancel > an operation, and a panel appeared. The two choices were "Cancel" and > "Cancel". I assume they meant cancel the operation or cancel the cancel. > The mind boggles. (sigh) You have to wonder if they bothered actually *testing* that part of the UI. > To make this more Cocoa related, is it worthwhile to add a feature to AppKit > so that you can't have two buttons with the same label on one panel ? Is > there some other way that Cocoa or the tools can "help" application > developers avoid silly errors ? The layout guides in IB helped a lot to > standardize layout. Is there a way to standardize other aspects of user > interface presentation ? Regarding adding a feature to AppKit, I think a run-time warning would be the only thing you could do, since you can't supply any fool-proof automatic recovery steps (as AppKit has no way of knowing what the 'other' button should be named or what the consequences are). It would have to be caught at design- or compile-time. Regarding some way to help developers avoid silly errors ... this has the same problem as above. Beyond that, what's silly (versus unknowable)? > Is this something better left to individual developers and used as an > indicator of overall application quality ? Now this I like. :-) When I see an app that has this obvious of a (let's face it) stupid error, it does me the service of letting me know I probably shouldn't trust anything critical to it. Though it sounds elitist to say so, it's a part of the natural world that we move on when we see poor quality. This is true of software, shopping for produce (or anything else for that matter), finding a mate, and so many other aspects of life. If someone can't be bothered to work out the obvious flaws (or provide undamaged, well-grown fruit, or take care of themselves, etc.), then they get passed by in favor of a superior specimen. Of course our developer tools will evolve and make it ever-easier to produce applications without letting "stupid errors" by, but for now, "silly error detection" is beyond the realm of Cocoa, and difficult at best for Xcode Tools for even general cases. In short, it appears brains are still required. Whew! I'm still employed! :-) -- I.S. _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
