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General => MusicBee Wishlist => Topic started by: hiccup on January 05, 2020, 04:20:15 PM

Title: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: hiccup on January 05, 2020, 04:20:15 PM
For any configuration panel, there is no indication of what will happen when you press 'Enter'.

Example; after having changed something in this panel, what will happen when you press [Enter]?
The panel will close, but has something been applied, were any edits saved or ignored? You'll have no idea.

(https://i.imgur.com/WmG9O6G.png)



This also raises a long-time itch of mine about the 'Apply', 'Save' and 'Close' buttons altogether.
Intuitively I would think just having 'Save and Exit' and 'Exit without saving' might be better candidates?
What would be the meaningful difference between having both an 'Apply' and a 'Save' button here?
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: phred on January 05, 2020, 05:25:24 PM
Example; after having changed something in this panel, what will happen when you press [Enter]?
The panel will close, but has something been applied, were any edits saved or ignored? You'll have no idea.
+1 Some sort of indication of changes to be applied would be helpful. And might even prevent some mistakes from being changed.

Quote
What would be the meaningful difference between having both an 'Apply' and a 'Save' button here?
I can't remember how MB works with this (I'm not at my MB PC) but often the developer allows clicking 'Apply' to errr, apply the changes -without- closing the window. Which allows the user to move to another tab/section/etc and continue making changes. 'Close' would not save any changes and close the window. 'Save' applies the changes and closes the window.

But yes, the results vary from application to application and like much in Windows, there is no set standard.
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: hiccup on January 05, 2020, 05:33:34 PM
I can't remember how MB works with this (I'm not at my MB PC) but often the developer allows clicking 'Apply' to errr, apply the changes -without- closing the window.

When back at your PC (it's feeling lonely and abandoned b.t.w.) you'll find that from the panel in the screenshot, 'Save' will not only do saving, but will also close the panel.
'Close' will also close the panel. But will that save the changes? It's not giving any indication.
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: phred on January 05, 2020, 05:36:37 PM
When back at your PC (it's feeling lonely and abandoned b.t.w.) you'll find that from the panel in the screenshot, 'Save' will not only do saving, but will also close the panel.
'Close' will also close the panel. But will that save the changes? It's not giving any indication.
From my (rather depleted) memory, 'Close' does -not- save any changes. It simply closes. You can test that yourself. As will I when I get back to my lonely PC.
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: psychoadept on January 05, 2020, 05:38:02 PM
Apply/Save is a pretty common button combo in Windows apps, working exactly as here. Maybe they could have a tool tip to provide specifics of what will happen? Would "Close" be clearer if it said "Cancel"?
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: hiccup on January 05, 2020, 05:40:28 PM
From my (rather depleted) memory, 'Close' does -not- save any changes. It simply closes. You can test that yourself. As will I when I get back to my lonely PC.

Same as you, I have gotten accustomed to MB as some second skin over the years, and I will know what will probably happen when I hit a button.
But how would a newBee know what happens when he presses 'Close' or hits the [Enter] button?
And how could he guess or understand the difference (if it even exists) between 'Save' and 'Apply' ?
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: phred on January 05, 2020, 07:38:52 PM
Would "Close" be clearer if it said "Cancel"?
Absolutely yes!

But how would a newBee know what happens when he presses 'Close' or hits the [Enter] button?
And how could he guess or understand the difference (if it even exists) between 'Save' and 'Apply' ?
Unless the dialog follows Windows conventions, the new user wouldn't/couldn't know.

So perhaps "Save and Continue" "Save and Close" and "Cancel and Close" would be better.[/quote]
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: hiccup on January 05, 2020, 08:16:29 PM
Would "Close" be clearer if it said "Cancel"?
Absolutely yes!

I don't understand why there would be three buttons to close a panel to begin with.

If you have made changes in a panel that you want to have applied you expect a button saying something like 'apply and close'.
If you just messed around and then changed your mind since you are not sure you know what you were doing, you want a button that implies 'forget about it, please close and don't tell anybody I even was here'.

So only two buttons indicating something like 'save and close' and 'ignore and close' would suffice?
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: frankz on January 06, 2020, 01:06:03 AM
"Apply" is standard for applying whatever you've done but leaving the window open for further edits. 

Most programs that I use that have the "Apply" option have "OK" (to save and close) and "Cancel" (to cancel without applying changes) as the other two options. 
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: psychoadept on January 06, 2020, 02:07:17 AM
I wouldn't want to lose the apply button. There are plenty of times when I want to save the changes I've made but I still have more stuff to mess with.
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: Zak on January 06, 2020, 03:43:01 AM
Changing the label on any of these buttons would be more confusing than what is currently implemented.

First, Close and Cancel do not mean the same thing.
Close means close this dialog box.
Cancel means close the dialog box and discard any of the changes I've made to it.

This means Apply and Cancel shouldn't appear on the same dialog, because what should happen if I make changes and click Apply and then click Cancel? Should the changes I made in the dialog box be undone even though I've already explicitly asked for them to be applied? That doesn't seem right.

Also, if you change a setting then click Close instead of Save, MusicBee will confirm if you meant to apply those changes:

(https://i.imgur.com/Cj7aAQE.png)

Strangely, this isn't implemented for all settings though.


Second, the first response to this question gives a thorough argument for inclusion of the Apply button:

https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/27781/when-to-include-an-apply-button

This seems especially applicable to a complex dialog like MusicBee's preferences.


Finally, to address the original post, the Save button should have a highlighted border, which is the Windows (and Mac and Linux and...) standard for the default button in a dialog box. Implementing that would be a better way to reduce confusion than deviating from well-established button labeling conventions.
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: Bee-liever on January 06, 2020, 07:26:22 AM
Finally, to address the original post, the Save button should have a highlighted border, which is the Windows (and Mac and Linux and...) standard for the default button in a dialog box. Implementing that would be a better way to reduce confusion than deviating from well-established button labeling conventions.

That's already available but it is skin specific:
<element id="Controls.Button.Highlight" bg="Main" fg="Contrast" bdr="Contrast+1" />
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: boroda on January 14, 2020, 11:49:38 AM
So perhaps "Save and Continue" "Save and Close" and "Cancel and Close" would be better.
[/quote]
this is the most common approach for windows apps, but buttons are usually named "Apply", "OK", "Cancel".
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: hiccup on January 14, 2020, 03:18:19 PM
To be clear, there are two different 'issues' here that would be good to keep separated.


1. Indication of what button (function) gets triggered when pressing [Enter].

Most programs I know of highlight the button that will be triggered when you press [Enter]:

(https://i.imgur.com/HsIcAUo.png)

MusicBee does not indicate what will happen when you press [Enter] here:

(https://i.imgur.com/95QsIrZ.png)

(spoiler alert, it will save and close, no confirmation pop-up)


2. Wording of the buttons 'Apply', 'Save', 'Close'.

Taking things very literally, wordings such as:

'Apply' doesn't say if it will leave the panel open, or close it while saving your changes.
'Save' doesn't say it will also close.
'Close' doesn't say if it will 'cancel and close' or 'save and close'.
(there can appear a confirmation pop-up afterwards, but the button itself doesn't clarify)


I don't believe the above issues are actually very problematic, and also I can't recall anybody else ever having mentioned something about this over all these years.
It's just something I observe and thought to throw in for some friendly discussion.

The argument I would make myself if I wanted to defend the current situation is that I do like the clean and uncluttered look of things.



edit:

I notice some other software (like two from the screenshot) have 'Apply' greyed out. That makes a lot of sense for when you opened a panel and haven't yet changed anything.
So perhaps some dynamic 'intelligence' added to these buttons could be a sensible improvement?
Maybe something like when you have changed a setting, 'Apply' gets 'un-greyed-out'™, and a 'Cancel' button appears?
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: phred on January 14, 2020, 07:27:25 PM
I notice some other software (like two from the screenshot) have 'Apply' greyed out. That makes a lot of sense for when you opened a panel and haven't yet changed anything.
So perhaps some dynamic 'intelligence' added to these buttons could be a sensible improvement?
Maybe something like when you have changed a setting, 'Apply' gets 'un-greyed-out'™, and a 'Cancel' button appears?
Yes, yes, and yes!
In other words, +1, +1, +1
This is keeping with (most) Windows conventions.
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: Zak on January 15, 2020, 03:29:22 AM
Maybe something like when you have changed a setting, 'Apply' gets 'un-greyed-out'™, and a 'Cancel' button appears?

It's considered bad UI behaviour to have buttons that affect the state of a dialog box appearing and disappearing.
In this case, that should be a button labeled Revert or Reset which is enabled only when a setting has changed. Your other programs in the screenshot have this.

Also see my previous reply about why MusicBee's Preferences dialog being non-modal confuses the matter somewhat with regard to Apply and Close buttons.


It may help to know how many people actually use the Apply button on the Preferences dialog to make adjustments on the fly.
I must spend as much time tinkering in that screen as anyone else, but I never use it that way.
If no one would miss it, making it modal and just having OK and Cancel buttons would remove any confusion.
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: hiccup on January 15, 2020, 08:58:29 AM
Maybe something like when you have changed a setting, 'Apply' gets 'un-greyed-out'™, and a 'Cancel' button appears?

It's considered bad UI behaviour to have buttons that affect the state of a dialog box appearing and disappearing.

I am not an avid smartphone user, but is that still the case these days?
I can imagine for small screens, dynamic buttons are a blessing, and people will appreciate them and get used to them easily?
Aren't they becoming more common, and maybe even considered good practice in some cases?

Quote
It may help to know how many people actually use the Apply button on the Preferences dialog to make adjustments on the fly.
I must spend as much time tinkering in that screen as anyone else, but I never use it that way.
If no one would miss it, making it modal and just having OK and Cancel buttons would remove any confusion.

I use 'Apply' myself regularly. But if I pick my brain as to why, it's probably some nervous tick so the be sure that my changes are saved, because I am not confident enough about the following 'Save' and 'Close' buttons.
Title: Re: An indication for what will be applied when pressing 'Enter'
Post by: Zak on January 16, 2020, 03:37:30 AM
It's considered bad UI behaviour to have buttons that affect the state of a dialog box appearing and disappearing.

I am not an avid smartphone user, but is that still the case these days?
I can imagine for small screens, dynamic buttons are a blessing, and people will appreciate them and get used to them easily?
Aren't they becoming more common, and maybe even considered good practice in some cases?
Sorry, was talking about desktop apps only. Mobile apps definitely have their own rules, required by the lack of an on screen cursor and the limited screen real estate.


In other news, it seems Apple is okay with dialogs having both Apply and Cancel buttons:

Make sure a Cancel button undoes all applied changes. A Cancel button should never silently commit changes the user previewed by clicking Apply.

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/windows-and-views/dialogs/


Still seems confusing to me, but I'm not a Mac user, so I'm not sure how many programs actually design their dialog boxes that way.