[ Photo RFE ] - Clarify / warn of preference actions before it's too late

[lphilpot]

Specifically I'm referring to this:

The Reset button should (one or more of these):

• Be renamed to "Reset all shortcuts"
• Be replaced by two buttons: "Reset this category" and "Reset all shortcuts"
• Trigger a warning / confirmation that ALL shortcuts (in all categories) will be reset, "Are you sure?"

I just clicked Reset with a particular category visible and immediately my custom shortcuts in other categories were all reset. I even killed off Photo (using Task Manager) in the vain hope the configuration wouldn't be written to disk until program close. No joy - They're gone.

(Note: I already (again) removed F15 / F16 for Zoom in / out before taking this screen shot. My keyboard goes only to F12.)

Please be more specific and informational (maybe even cautionary) when performing such a global and irreversible configuration change.

 

[MikeTO]

😞

After you get your shortcuts back to where you want them you should consider clicking Save so that you can restore them at any time.

[lphilpot]

4 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

😞

After you get your shortcuts back to where you want them you should consider clicking Save so that you can restore them at any time.

I agree and actually I did that a long while back, but they're not current enough to be worth restoring. Still an ounce of prevention can save a pound of cure. Basic UX consideration.

[Pšenda]

The basic flaw in Affinity's design is in the concept of dialogs/forms for settings (not just keyboard shortcuts). The dialog should be equipped with OK/Cancel buttons, and until the user confirms the settings by pressing OK (or Apply), the settings will not be accepted and will be canceled. The fact that any choice is made immediately is a non-standard procedure (at least for Windows).

[MikeTO]

20 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

The basic flaw in Affinity's design is in the concept of dialogs/forms for settings (not just keyboard shortcuts). The dialog should be equipped with OK/Cancel buttons, and until the user confirms the settings by pressing OK (or Apply), the settings will not be accepted and will be canceled. The fact that any choice is made immediately is a non-standard procedure (at least for Windows).

FYI Affinity's Settings approach is very Mac-like, Settings windows on macOS have never had OK and Cancel buttons.

macOS Settings has a Keyboard Shortcuts window with a similar Restore Defaults button that doesn't have a confirmation alert, but it restores shortcuts for only one category at a time so it's not very destructive. I think the suggestion that there be a confirmation alert for Affinity's Reset button is quite reasonable.

Ideally there would be a button named "Please restore my shortcuts back to the way they were before I started changing them" but that's probably a bigger change than adding an alert. 🙂 

[lphilpot]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

The dialog should be equipped with OK/Cancel buttons, and until the user confirms the settings by pressing OK (or Apply), the settings will not be accepted and will be canceled. The fact that any choice is made immediately is a non-standard procedure (at least for Windows).

30 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

FYI Affinity's Settings approach is very Mac-like, Settings windows on macOS have never had OK and Cancel buttons.

I was about to say the same thing. The Serif approach is extremely Apple-centric, even in their Windows products. I'm neither a Microsoft nor an Apple fan by any means, but it's just poor design (picked up mostly from Apple) to make assumptions and silently do things. What's perceived these days as "the Microsoft way" (WIMP) was actually based on earlier IBM CUA principles and IMO just makes sense.

I agree with @Pšenda in general -- There should never be an explicit choice made without confirmation or specific user direction. I'm in no way advocating excessive "Are you sure" prompts (a la '90s Microsoft... shudder) but there should confirmation and choice, particularly when there's no undo. In general dialog choices should be Cancel, No and whatever permutations of Yes fit the scenario.

Automatic document / option saving is in the same boat, and a major irritation to me. Having periodic temporary saves which are confirmed when the document is closed is good crash / corruption protection, but there should still be an explicit discard or save decision from the user in the end.

Can you tell I don't like it when programmers try to think for me?  😕 Give me well-documented tools and let me use them. If I cut my finger, my bad and my fault (as long as the tool didn't malfunction).

Anyway... rant_mode = off.  🙃

[lphilpot]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

The dialog should be equipped with OK/Cancel buttons, and until the user confirms the settings by pressing OK (or Apply), the settings will not be accepted and will be canceled.

One other thing - OK, Apply and Save aren't necessarily the same thing. OK is general, Apply is for the current (running) session only and Save is for all (future) sessions, i.e., the default. In practice OK and Save are often synonymous but not always.