On Oct 11, 2010, at 11:27 PM, yoav glazner wrote:

> For example, in an editor, if you delete a word, and then type it back in - 
> you aren't really asking the editor to *not* show you the "save" button, 
> aren't you?
> 
> Diez
> 
> If I edit a file under version then it would show me that no changes are made 
> and there nothing to commit.

I didn't say it's not possible. I said it is usually not happening, and still 
people seem to be coping.

> 
> In my case I've a simpe dialog that can change some global DB variables- When 
> the user click OK, I need to ask the user "are you sure? this is risky!" but 
> i don't want to ask him this if nothing really changed. 

Again: I don't believe that is needed. If the user performed any actions that 
altered the state until it eventually reached the same state as to begin with, 
I'd still say it is not worth bothering to tell him about it. Either he does 
not want the changes to happen - then there's the "Cancel"-button (and a 
subsequent rollback), or the "Ok" does no harm. It is a user-interaction 
problem, not a technical one.

Of course you are welcome to implement a state comparison, and disable the 
Ok-button unless there is a real change, or suppress that extra confirmation. 
My opinion on this is clearly that it would confuse people more than it helps. 
Because as I already mentioned - the users of your software (usually of course) 
do not have the mental model mapped out as clearly as you have while you 
implement this.

For them, it's the same thing they are doing twice, and then all of a sudden 
they get that extra dialog. Or not. And now they don't know if something 
happened.

A different angle could be this: can you name one software that does this which 
is geared towards end-users? I'm not talking programmers here - version-control 
is a concept *way* beyond comprehension for a great deal people. Believe me, I 
wish it were otherwise, as our website's content is stored in one - and no one 
but a programmer really gets it.

Diez

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