Re: [Rails-devel] Release Rails 1.7.0 available

[Jerry A. <jer...@ya...>]

Couple of comments regarding "save/apply" button and the configuration dialog (It is a bit confusing to use).
 
On Windows standard UI behavior is typically:
 
    "Saving" should not occur when the user closes a window with the close box in the upper right corner. They should be warned that a save is needed and then let them choose to "cancel" the close operation or close without saving. Using the close box without any warning as it is now should be "cancel".
 
"Save/Apply" button should be changed to "Save", "Save As...", "Apply" and/or "Ok/Done/Cancel" as individual actions. Some defintions of expected behavior.
 
    "Save" - save to the current configuration file. This can include a "close" to complete the operation. Usually you will only "close" the window if "apply" is also present as an option.
    "Save As..." - save to a file of the users choice including a new file or overwriting an existing file. The dialog from that point forward should be editing the new file. This can include a "close" to complete the operation. Usually you will only "close" the window if "apply" is also present as an option.
    "Apply" - this is typically a save without a close.
    "Ok/Done/Cancel" - Depending on the other options on the dialog this usually covers whatever scenarios are not covered. "Cancel" usually suggests a rollback of all changes since the last save - this can get a little tricky to communicate to the user when you allow for saving that does not close the dialog. 
 
I would suggest changing to a "save (followed by a close)", "save as... (followed by a close)" and "cancel" buttons. All changes are scoped to the lifetime of the dialog. 
 
  

________________________________
 From: Stefan Frey <ste...@we...>
To: an 18xx game <rai...@li...> 
Sent: Tuesday, March 6, 2012 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] Release Rails 1.7.0 available
  
Phil:
that are valid remarks: You found a bug that occurs in a combination
I have no tested so far.
Further remarks below: At least for me the real challenge in UI design 
is to anticipate how users can react and what they expect. Or better I 
believe it is impossible and so you can only learn by feedback.
Stefan


Remark first:
* Choosing save/apply actually creates a new user profile, so it ask
for a new name (which is not equal to an existing profile).
* Choosing apply automatically saves it.
* User profiles are stored in the configuration folder of the user 
machine, predefined profiles come inside the jar.


On 03/06/2012 06:03 PM, Phil Davies wrote:
> Stefan,
>
> Initial thoughts are that the configuration isn't working correctly.
>   When I start up rails, I can load any of the default configs using the
> dropdown box.  If I open the config window to edit the configuration,
> clicking save/apply prompts me for a name.

The name to enter is the name for the new UI profile.

>
> Firstly, that seems to make it impossible to overwrite the default
> configurations (I'd like prettyUI to have borders disabled, personally)
> since if I type the same name it it simply prompts me again.

There are two reasons why predefined profiles cannot be overwritten:
A) A technical one as the predefined will get updated with every release 
to provide defaults for new added configurations.
User profiles are only stored as changes to the predefined profile so 
that they are able to inherit the new options with sensible defaults.

B) In principal it would be possible to ignore reason A) and to allow 
profile "overloading", so that the user profile gets preference.
However the predefined profiles always provide a reasonable fall-back 
version.


Secondly,
> no matter what name I DO type in, it doesn't seem to save.  Do I
> understand the below correctly that the configuration data should be
> saving into %USERPROFILE%\application data\rails on windows?  I have a
> rails.recent file in there but nothing else seems to change if I try and
> save new configurations.

That is actually a bug, you change the "pbem" predefined profile and 
then store that as a user profile (that was my test case) but it does 
not work for the new ones (as they are treated as transitory).

It is easy to fix, however I would like to wait for at least two days of 
feedback unless there is a critical bug.

Stefan

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