MAP@LCS.MIT.EDU (Michael A. Patton) (08/23/89)
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 89 09:45:09 EDT From: phil@goldhill.com There are cases where the user should not be allowed to do anything except respond to the popup. I have popup's that block all input in the case when a malloc has failed - the popup is to notify the user that such a condition has arisen and inform them that cleanup is about to occur and that a "safe" state in the application is to be returned to. WRONG! I would love to have some of my programs pop up a requestor when this happens and let me go off to other windows killing things off and then come back to the original popup and say something like "Retry" since now the machine may have enough memory. Most of them just crash :-(. There probably are some conditions where you HAVE to respond, but I still haven't heard a good example.
meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) (08/25/89)
Michael A. Patton writes: | Phil@goldhill writes: | There are cases where the user should not be allowed to do anything except | respond to the popup. I have popup's that block all input in the case when | a malloc has failed - the popup is to notify the user that such a condition | has arisen and inform them that cleanup is about to occur and that a "safe" | state in the application is to be returned to. | |WRONG! I would love to have some of my programs pop up a requestor |when this happens and let me go off to other windows killing things |off and then come back to the original popup and say something like |"Retry" since now the machine may have enough memory. Most of them |just crash :-(. There probably are some conditions where you HAVE to |respond, but I still haven't heard a good example. It depends on what type of market you are addressing. Our software has to be user-friendly in a computer-illiterate market, and the workstation is currently dedicated to our application (we provide a "turnkey solution"). There are times we have to make sure the user has seen the popup and responded before they move on, or they may be in for a rude surprise. Our software is good enough that a Kelly temp, with less than 1 day's training, was doing what took several skilled professionals could do, in days, whereas the old method took weeks, at least. The typical temp worker may be bright, but is usually not X-11 or workstation-literate. For instance, we have to make sure that when they say hit the "abort" button, they *must* respond to the explanation/continuation query before they do anything else. They can always hit "no" and go double check, but at this point, it's just too unsafe to allow amodality. With about a dozen users, we have had NO complaints about this. -Miles
david@ics.COM (David B. Lewis) (08/26/89)
In article <6649@stiatl.UUCP>, meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: < Michael A. Patton writes: < | Phil@goldhill writes: < | <support of modal poups> < |WRONG! I would love to have some of my programs pop up a requestor < |when this happens and let me go off to other windows killing things < |off and then come back to the original popup and say something like < |"Retry" since now the machine may have enough memory. Most of them Yes! < For instance, we have to make sure that when they say hit the "abort" < button, they *must* respond to the explanation/continuation query before < they do anything else. They can always hit "no" and go double check, < but at this point, it's just too unsafe to allow amodality. The analogy isn't quite appropriate: the former involves the whole system, the latter only the application. In the first case, it isn't really possible for the person to "go off and double-check"; the application is dead by then. The use is more justifiable in the second, local to the application. I regard modal dialogs as a best to avoid in general because most programmers do not handle them as discreetly as Miles describes. I am willing to trade away appropriate uses to save on general frustration. One particular example of abuse of modal dialogs stays in my mind: I had entered a fair amount of text into a (beta) WYSIWYG editor and then decided to change the font to a font which turned out not to exist -- as I was informed by a dialog box which repeatedly came up needing input, once for every character in the document. -- David B. Lewis david@ics.com ics!david@buita.bu.edu david%ics.UUCP@buita.bu.edu "There are five stages of fame: denial, anger, negotiation, acceptance, and death. These stages are virtually the same as the five stages of terminal illness." -Nora Ephron