GUI design question

[Uli Kusterer]

Am 19.04.2007 um 09:33 schrieb Lothar Scholz:
> 1) Interrupt the workflow of the user and tell him his input is
> incorrect (at least issue a warning).

Well, not while the user is typing, but a common technique is to do  
that either when the user removes the cursor from the field, or to  
prevent the user from closing the Prefs window unless something valid  
has been entered (offering to either return to the most recent valid  
value, or to not close and fix it). Personally I prefer the latter,  
because that means they'll be able to switch to another app while  
there's something invalid in the field (e.g. so they can look up the  
syntax of regular expressions on the web, or whatever).

> 2) Don't run the program and show an alert box that the output will  
> not
> be parsed correctly because the regexpr is invalid. Means: check
> preferences before the first use.

If you allow switching between windows while an invalid value is in  
the field, that might be a good idea.

> 3) Run the program and the user will see it on his own because the
> error lines in the output are not highlighted. Let him guess that this
> have to do with his wrong input.

Wouldn't do that.

> By the way: should a preference window have a "reset" button to
> revert all the options to the time when the dialog was shown the
> first time?

Usually, such a button is called "Revert", but yeah, it's not a bad  
idea. Some apps also have "Revert to Factory Settings", which is a  
related but different function.

Cheers,
-- M. Uli Kusterer
http://www.zathras.de