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How common was undo really? I don't remember undo functionality being anywhere except in content editor applications like word processors, and that's still the

by baddox 8y ago

How common was undo really? I don't remember undo functionality being anywhere except in content editor applications like word processors, and that's still the case today.

radley 8y ago
I can't speak for Windows, but almost every app on Mac has undo. Undo and redo had widespread adoption by the 1990s. iPhone implemented shake to undo back with iPhone 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undo http://osxdaily.com/2009/08/21/undo-button-iphone-shaking-motions/ http://osxdaily.com/2009/08/21/undo-button-iphone-shaking-mo...
freeone3000 8y ago
What isn't a content editor application? Word has it. Paint has it. Outlook has it. Windows Explorer (the file manager) has it. It's universal across Windows and Mac OSes and as universal as anything can be on linux.
- baddox 8y ago
  > What isn't a content editor application? Well, anything that isn't a text/content editor (or a file system manager, which I had forgotten to mention), so basically the vast majority of computer usage. Settings in applications, navigation state of applications, state of the OS/window manager itself (I'm not aware of a desktop environment where moving or closing a window or application supports an undo feature), etc. Web browsers and most file managers do support back and forward navigation, if you want to count that as "undo." The comment I was initially replying to talked about being afraid to press buttons in modern UIs because of the lack of undo. My claim is that, except for buttons that change formatting in text/content editors or buttons that make changes in some file system managers, undo functionality has really never existed to my knowledge.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > Web browsers (...) do support back and forward navigation, if you want to count that as "undo." Not in practice, as this feature is universally broken by modern web developers, making it totally unreliable. You have a good point about undo - it was universally a feature for reverting operations on edited data, not on application state itself. But then again, it was compensated by buttons having reliable tooltips, and most options available in textual menus.
  - dingaling 8y ago
    Most web browsers also have 'reopen previously closed tab' which is a canonical form of reversion. Firefox's tab history seems quite deep, I can CTRL-SHIFT-T many times.
pkamb 8y ago
It kind of amazes me now when I use Undo in a native non-text-editing, non-photo-editing Mac app like Mail. Of course you can Undo something like Archiving a message. That's the Mac way, since 1984. But after a decade of using gmail, it's not even something I would think to do.
- adrianratnapala 8y ago
  Except undoing "Archive" is a feature that gmail has had for as long as I remember, and it is exposed to you by an immediate notification after you have archived it. What I am less confident of is what happens when that notification goes away.

by baddox 8y ago

How common was undo really? I don't remember undo functionality being anywhere except in content editor applications like word processors, and that's still the case today.

radley 8y ago

I can't speak for Windows, but almost every app on Mac has undo. Undo and redo had widespread adoption by the 1990s. iPhone implemented shake to undo back with iPhone 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undo http://osxdaily.com/2009/08/21/undo-button-iphone-shaking-motions/ http://osxdaily.com/2009/08/21/undo-button-iphone-shaking-mo...

freeone3000 8y ago

What isn't a content editor application? Word has it. Paint has it. Outlook has it. Windows Explorer (the file manager) has it. It's universal across Windows and Mac OSes and as universal as anything can be on linux.

baddox 8y ago
> What isn't a content editor application? Well, anything that isn't a text/content editor (or a file system manager, which I had forgotten to mention), so basically the vast majority of computer usage. Settings in applications, navigation state of applications, state of the OS/window manager itself (I'm not aware of a desktop environment where moving or closing a window or application supports an undo feature), etc. Web browsers and most file managers do support back and forward navigation, if you want to count that as "undo." The comment I was initially replying to talked about being afraid to press buttons in modern UIs because of the lack of undo. My claim is that, except for buttons that change formatting in text/content editors or buttons that make changes in some file system managers, undo functionality has really never existed to my knowledge.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > Web browsers (...) do support back and forward navigation, if you want to count that as "undo." Not in practice, as this feature is universally broken by modern web developers, making it totally unreliable. You have a good point about undo - it was universally a feature for reverting operations on edited data, not on application state itself. But then again, it was compensated by buttons having reliable tooltips, and most options available in textual menus.
- dingaling 8y ago
  Most web browsers also have 'reopen previously closed tab' which is a canonical form of reversion. Firefox's tab history seems quite deep, I can CTRL-SHIFT-T many times.

pkamb 8y ago

It kind of amazes me now when I use Undo in a native non-text-editing, non-photo-editing Mac app like Mail. Of course you can Undo something like Archiving a message. That's the Mac way, since 1984. But after a decade of using gmail, it's not even something I would think to do.

adrianratnapala 8y ago
Except undoing "Archive" is a feature that gmail has had for as long as I remember, and it is exposed to you by an immediate notification after you have archived it. What I am less confident of is what happens when that notification goes away.