I'd like the HIG to contain some simple suggestions for document-based applications that are not tabbed. I'd like to avoid general conceptual stuff about document-centric UI models, however. I'd also like to stick to UI rather than implementation for now.
This could deal with some inconsistencies and deal with the problem that most of these document windows currently behave differently if opened from the Applications menu or from the application's File menu. Are there objections to the HIG saying this, in the appropriate sections?: 0. An application is "document-based" if it loads and saves documents. 1. Document-based applications should have File/New, File/Open, File/Save, and File/Save As menu items. 1.1 File/New and File/Open should open new application windows (if not using tabs), if the current document is empty and unmodified. 1.2 File/Open should check if the chosen document is already open in the application. If so, it should bring the window to the front. The application may ask the user if he wishes to open a second window for the document. Show suggested UI for that. 1.3 The same check and UI should happen when opening a file in any other way, such as from the file manager. 2. Document-based applications should have a File/Quit menu item. This should close only the current document window. It should not close all document windows open by the application. 2.1 Should it be called File/Close instead? Do we want both the Close and Quit keyboard shortcuts to activate this menu item, to avoid annoying people with the change. 2.2. If there are unsaved changes in the document, the application should ask the user if they wish to save the changes. Show a suggested UI for that, because these are currently very inconsistent. 3. The application should _not_ list its open document windows in a Documents or Windows menu. -- [email protected] www.murrayc.com www.openismus.com _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
