I imagine that an easy mistake to make is to click 'Apply' to test a change and then when one isn't happy with the change to click 'Cancel'. But in this context 'Cancel' and 'OK' are identical. I think after 'Apply' the 'Cancel' button should be disabled to not mislead users that something will be canceled. The 'Cancel' button would be enabled when further edits are made.
A more radical alternative is that 'Cancel' restores the block to how it was when the editor was opened.
uh, that's a really bad idea. Pressing cancel should just restore it to how it was in it's last save.
So if you edit a block, click OK, then edit it again and click Cancel it should go back to the last save (if there was one)?
literally what it does now. I'm saying it shouldn't change.
I think I'm understanding now that people think that the 'Apply' button really means save while 'Cancel' means don't save any changes since the last save. 'OK' means save and exit the editor.
I think renaming 'Apply' to 'Save' would reduce the confusion.
But I would also like an easy way to try out changes to a block and revert back if the changes don't work out. Perhaps undo should undo edits even if there was a Save/Apply.
apply basically means save. Apply is also used everywhere, so I doubt we need to do that.
Hi!
We have commented this in the past, also for other dialogs.
I think the key here is not to argue about what a "Cancel" action would do... Because that button is just "Close" (I don't know if we have to do that change or not, but I think it's the clear solution).
With "close" the interpretation problem is gone. Maybe you have "applied" earlier or not. It just "close" the dialog.
Joan
"Close" seems unambiguous. "Cancel" can mean cancel the changes I just made or cancel the editor.
I feel like the way it is right now is the best solution. It's easy to figure it all out.
I think that this is a case in which it matters what kind of computer you use. If it runs Windows, then you're very familiar with OK/Apply/Cancel. I think it's Linux people who think "Close," but I wouldn't swear to it. As for this:
it's funny but I think exactly the opposite. "Cancel" to me means "Get me out of here without changing anything" whereas "Close" leaves it unspecified whether to complete whatever action is in progress (like "OK" on the Mac) or to cancel the action. Both ways the window is closed.
From the Windows 7 design guidelines for dialogs:
This means that if the dialog is intended to work like on Windows, the button should be either renamed to Close or revert all changes made after opening the block editor.
Yes, I agree, it's kind of a misfeature that you can't revert edits once you've said Apply.
Renaming to Close wouldn't be right either, because the Cancel button does cancel edits since the last Apply.
I think cancelling edits since the last Apply is actually the most common behavior of Close buttons (if there are both OK and Close). That is probably what "existing side effects" means.
Oh, maybe. I'll check it out.
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