Default button placement in Linux GUIs
Richard Gaskin
ambassador at fourthworld.com
Tue Apr 17 12:12:31 EDT 2007
An age-old challenge in making multi-platform apps is handling the
placement of the default button in dialogs.
On Mac OS the confirmation control is on the right, with the cancel
control on the left. Bruce Tognazzini and others maintain that this
placement is best supported by usability research.
But on Windows the action control is on the left, with the cancel
control on the right. In correspondence with me on this issue, Mr.
Tognazzini suggests that in spite of research on optimal placement,
consistency is a far bigger factor so software designers should employ
whichever is most prevalent on the target OS.
So for us Rev folks this means that making HIG-compliant software
requires us to write routines which flip those button positions. Sure,
it's a drag, but not the end of the world.
But then we come to Linux:
The Gnome HIG suggests using Apple's approach, with the confirmation
control on the right. But the KDE HIG suggests using the Windows
approach with the opposite layout.
Does the Rev engine provide a way to determine which window manager it's
running under in Linux?
If not, how can we reconcile this issue if we want to deploy our apps to
either window manager?
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
___________________________________________________________
Ambassador at FourthWorld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com
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