4 ms·

With OS X, every change is immediately visible so you immediately know what to undo. With Windows, nothing you change takes effect unless you click OK or Apply,

With OS X, every change is immediately visible so you immediately know what to undo. With Windows, nothing you change takes effect unless you click OK or Apply, at which point the Cancel button has no effect and there is no Rollback. How is this better than OS X? It just adds three superfluous buttons.

barrkel 16y ago
It's simply not true that every change is immediately visible; only for appearance preferences is that the case. It isn't the same case for behaviour configuration. It's hard to understand how uncomfortable it feels when you're used to having this safety net, and it's taken away. It makes changing the preferences (for most applications, not just System Preferences) a much more cautious affair, in my experience. Even something as simple as changing the default font used in an application - once changed, it can take a lot of hunting to get it back the way it was.
- lovskogen 16y ago
  Could you give examples of options that should need a second confirmation? I think the instantness and not having to Apply is great - but maybe I'm not setting the same options as you.
  - barrkel 16y ago
    On a Windows 7 system, right-click the desktop and select Personalize. Here, you can change the desktop background and window colour theme; changes are previewed instantaneously. But there are two buttons at the bottom: "Save changes" and "Cancel". So you can muck about with full screen preview, but still cancel at any time. It's not a second confirmation: it's an ability to undo what you just did.
    - lovskogen 16y ago
      That's true, it's better usability. But not all options are so visual that it's easy to muck around and then cancel. E.g turning on Bluetooth – either the user wants to turn in on, or not. Sure, the Apply / Cancel removes the possibility of someone clicking around hitting the "On" checkbox. But I think it's better to optimize for regular use, and not have a Apply button when you just checked to apply.
      - barrkel 16y ago
        I don't think the Apply button is a good idea, as I said in a cousin posting. Ideally changes would be previewed in a modeless dialog, even to the point of temporarily enabling Bluetooth, but still with a cancel option.
        lovskogen 16y ago
        But wouldn't the checkbox serve as a cancel option too?
- chrisbolt 16y ago
  If a change is not immediately visible, how would a Cancel button help? Preferences dialogs on Windows are modal, if a change is not visible you can't see the difference until you have committed the change. Especially so if a change requires a restart of the application or reboot of the OS, both of which would remove the Rollback button and the dialog it was attached to. Also, the default font for an application is an appearance preference.
  - barrkel 16y ago
    My point about the font is that even when it's an appearance preference, and you have a nice preview, it's still a pain in the neck to get it back to the way it was before. There's also another aspect to settings. Many settings are logically tree-shaped: certain settings only apply if a dependent setting is in effect. A very simple example: Firefox's popup blocker has some settings - the Exceptions. But the Exceptions only apply if the popup blocker is actually enabled. You can't fully explore the configuration space of an application most of the time without running into these things. But you don't want to have committed to changing these settings just to explore the configuration space. The Cancel option on the dialog lets you explore without commitment. Now, you won't get an argument from me that the Apply button is useful. I think preference dialogs shouldn't be modal where reasonable, and that changes should be previewed across the application. That's not always the case in Windows, and it should be better. But on topic here is the Cancel button, and that's what's missing on OS X, and where I believe Windows has it trumped.
    - chrisbolt 16y ago
      Why would you be exploring the options of the popup blocker if you didn't have it enabled, let alone changing them?
      - barrkel 16y ago
        Chris, I brought up the popup blocker specifically because it was a very simple demonstration of the conditional / predicate nature of exploring the configuration space, not because of its intrinsic configuration worth. Your response makes me think you're not responding in good faith, and have little interest in honest discussion. The reason for exploring the configuration space? Are you serious? In order to discover what is possible to be configured, of course! Take another example. I'm interested in protecting my privacy, but not at the cost of too much convenience. So I'm interested in clearing some history when my browser shuts down; but not things like cookies or saved passwords. In order to discover what options are available here, in Firefox I need to enable the "Clear history when Firefox closes" option in order to discover how configurable it is. But I don't know how complicated things are going to get when I click on that Settings... button, and I certainly don't want my cookies etc. cleared prematurely, but I can comfortably stride forth into it, because I know I can hit cancel at any time and back out.

barrkel 16y ago

It's simply not true that every change is immediately visible; only for appearance preferences is that the case. It isn't the same case for behaviour configuration. It's hard to understand how uncomfortable it feels when you're used to having this safety net, and it's taken away. It makes changing the preferences (for most applications, not just System Preferences) a much more cautious affair, in my experience. Even something as simple as changing the default font used in an application - once changed, it can take a lot of hunting to get it back the way it was.

lovskogen 16y ago
Could you give examples of options that should need a second confirmation? I think the instantness and not having to Apply is great - but maybe I'm not setting the same options as you.
- barrkel 16y ago
  On a Windows 7 system, right-click the desktop and select Personalize. Here, you can change the desktop background and window colour theme; changes are previewed instantaneously. But there are two buttons at the bottom: "Save changes" and "Cancel". So you can muck about with full screen preview, but still cancel at any time. It's not a second confirmation: it's an ability to undo what you just did.
  - lovskogen 16y ago
    That's true, it's better usability. But not all options are so visual that it's easy to muck around and then cancel. E.g turning on Bluetooth – either the user wants to turn in on, or not. Sure, the Apply / Cancel removes the possibility of someone clicking around hitting the "On" checkbox. But I think it's better to optimize for regular use, and not have a Apply button when you just checked to apply.
    - barrkel 16y ago
      I don't think the Apply button is a good idea, as I said in a cousin posting. Ideally changes would be previewed in a modeless dialog, even to the point of temporarily enabling Bluetooth, but still with a cancel option.
      - lovskogen 16y ago
        But wouldn't the checkbox serve as a cancel option too?
chrisbolt 16y ago
If a change is not immediately visible, how would a Cancel button help? Preferences dialogs on Windows are modal, if a change is not visible you can't see the difference until you have committed the change. Especially so if a change requires a restart of the application or reboot of the OS, both of which would remove the Rollback button and the dialog it was attached to. Also, the default font for an application is an appearance preference.
- barrkel 16y ago
  My point about the font is that even when it's an appearance preference, and you have a nice preview, it's still a pain in the neck to get it back to the way it was before. There's also another aspect to settings. Many settings are logically tree-shaped: certain settings only apply if a dependent setting is in effect. A very simple example: Firefox's popup blocker has some settings - the Exceptions. But the Exceptions only apply if the popup blocker is actually enabled. You can't fully explore the configuration space of an application most of the time without running into these things. But you don't want to have committed to changing these settings just to explore the configuration space. The Cancel option on the dialog lets you explore without commitment. Now, you won't get an argument from me that the Apply button is useful. I think preference dialogs shouldn't be modal where reasonable, and that changes should be previewed across the application. That's not always the case in Windows, and it should be better. But on topic here is the Cancel button, and that's what's missing on OS X, and where I believe Windows has it trumped.
  - chrisbolt 16y ago
    Why would you be exploring the options of the popup blocker if you didn't have it enabled, let alone changing them?
    - barrkel 16y ago
      Chris, I brought up the popup blocker specifically because it was a very simple demonstration of the conditional / predicate nature of exploring the configuration space, not because of its intrinsic configuration worth. Your response makes me think you're not responding in good faith, and have little interest in honest discussion. The reason for exploring the configuration space? Are you serious? In order to discover what is possible to be configured, of course! Take another example. I'm interested in protecting my privacy, but not at the cost of too much convenience. So I'm interested in clearing some history when my browser shuts down; but not things like cookies or saved passwords. In order to discover what options are available here, in Firefox I need to enable the "Clear history when Firefox closes" option in order to discover how configurable it is. But I don't know how complicated things are going to get when I click on that Settings... button, and I certainly don't want my cookies etc. cleared prematurely, but I can comfortably stride forth into it, because I know I can hit cancel at any time and back out.