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How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons?
I think that the idea that changes are not committed until you click OK, and the idea that you can always back out of unwanted changes by clicking Cancel are time-honored traditions.
They are foundational to the desktop computer user interface and changing this paradigm would be like making octagonal windows instead of rectangular ones. It doesn't make sense.
OK and Cancel buttons are the on-screen analogue of the Enter key and the Escape key. What would a computer be like without an Enter key?
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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It's essential for a keyboard to have a RETURN key—just as it should.
modified 6-Apr-24 8:37am.
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hmmm... I don't think I've seen that.
Real Windows dialogs ? or a 3rd party app dialogs ?
Modal or Modeless dialog ?
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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Many of the "settings" dialogs in Windows 11 have no "OK" button, IIRC. They are applied as soon as one makes a choice.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I hadn't even noticed. I kind of like having the setting take place immediately, especially since I can easily undo it. Also, this isn't a new behavior for Windows Settings. For instance, the classic mouse control panel applet implements changes as soon as you make them and doesn't wait for an OK button.
Now where I would draw the line is if the dialog has the classic Apply/Ok/Cancel buttons. Then it shouldn't make changes until Apply or Ok is clicked.
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In (my corner of) the Linux world, "apps" generally have action buttons in dialogs, but things like settings are often updated on-the-fly without an extra click.
I'm comfortable with that.
veering OT to rant territory...
My current gripe is a Windows app I use at Fire Control.
Double click the desktop icon, fine. Logon splash window opens. Username box highlighted, Ibeam there.
Start typing. NOTHING HAPPENS! Window isn't focused. 
That app has so many UI fails it's unbelievable it got so far in the market.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote: How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them, and thus forego the OK and Cancel buttons?
Programming is an art, and like anything creative... it depends.
One of the worst user design experiences is when people use modals for everything. You sneeze... bam... modal! It can take you out the flow and can be tedious. For instance, Did you really mean to close the app? when there's no data to save. What a waste of a click.
And what about for a settings dialog? Does it really have to be atomic? More times than not, you won't make a mistake. And if you did, you can mindlessly click OK with the same mistake. Just the auto save per field means less work. You could make the argument that at least clicking the OK button gives some sorta feeling the setting was saved, and that's true. But it's not much of an indication since most people use that to mean "close" the dialog.
But it's context dependent. If you intend to do an action that's assumed and have a way to recover from it and also let the user intelligently know what happened without disturbing their flow... it's not a bad thing. If you never ask for an atomic confirmation at all... ever... it's a bad thing. It just all depends.
Jeremy Falcon
modified 6-Apr-24 7:40am.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: And what about for a settings dialog? Does it really have to be atomic?
In some cases it is even worse if it is atomic. A good example is the drop-down for display resolution. You want to see the result right away. Same for colour selections and other UI adjustments.
As you said: it all depends.
Mircea
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For instance, Did you really mean to close the app? when there's no data to save. What a waste of a click.
With todays trends of fashion over function, I think confirmation is even more important. On modern Windows it is very difficult to se were one application ends and another starts when windows are on top of each other, so I often hit the wrong X and I'm grateful for the confirmation 
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I've noticed this too. It's nearly impossible to get windows to have borders that are clearly visible. I really don't understand how this makes windows more usable...other than I've also noticed that many people never learned to use Windows and just full screen EVERYTHING.
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I am not aware of this trend as I have not seen it but in my opinion the concept is hideous.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Exactly which dialogs are you referring to? I have not seen this in any application that I use.
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I've seen it on some settings dialogs... especially on Macs.
Jeremy Falcon
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The question was specifically about Windows, so I would be interested to see which ones Richard A. is referring to.
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For instance, windows update settings. You defer restart date simply by selecting from a drop down list. But if you want to change restart time, you need to select hour/minutes from drop-down/scrolling lists, and then click OK!!! (Windows 10)
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I can supply a couple of examples.
One is the settings dialog box in Windows 10 and Windows 11.
And the other, I just discovered, is the Launch Profile dialog box in Visual Studio 2022. It has no commit button and no discard button.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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It's not even specific to Win11, even on Win10, if you try to change Mouse settings, for instance, change the primary button from left to right, the change takes effect immediately.
Cheers,
Vikram.
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Chrome ushered in autosave as you go in settings. It does save from having to hunt for whatever button saves this stuff but I've gotten so used to it that unless it's catastrophic to do otherwise I have began to save fields onblur (leave) on my own creations and haven't been bit yet, so it just might be better than the way we had. 
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Welcome to the unified world of mobile and desktop. Huge wasted screen estate and jumbo titles were just the beginning.
On mobile, there are no real choices. On desktop, however ...
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I'm quite happy most of the time about it. Seeing result immediately is one of possible benefits, e.g. when changing language, color, ... .
That being said I would welcome, some undo (revert, cancel) in some cases tho.
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I'm afraid they adapted the Windows GUI to the average cognitive level. They probably think (and they are not entirely wrong) that [OK] and [Cancel] are two "concepts" that are too complicated to understand.
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Richard Andrew x64 wrote: How do you feel about the trend toward making Windows desktop dialog boxes commit all changes as soon as you make them
Did you just notice this?
Seems like I was seeing those at least 10 years ago.
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I recently worked on an inventory system and I started out trying to capture all the input from a rather complex dialog with several fields. Some of the data was encapsulated in classes displayed in ListViews. I had to provide current database values of those classes along with a set changed values that the user had made to the items in the list. This dialog had 3 different lists on it, each list was editable, they could add remove and change each one! I came to the conclusion it was easier just to remove the Cancel button and change OK to "Close". I had to add "Save" button to the top area of the dialog that contained several text fields that were actual candidates for an OK Cancel scenario.
I suppose one solution would be to provide two dialogs for this particular item, one for editing it's directly attached fields, those that are in it's table and another set of dialogs editing items that are in other tables, but to access those other dialogs it would have to be done at a higher level, not from the dialog containing the direct fields! So see what a mess it becomes, now you have to go all over the place to change a thing's properties and still adhere to the absolute rule that everything must allow a cancel feature!
I liked the way it turned out, it was all in one place, you got to it from one place, easier to use.
That OK Cancel design, man, it's old. Yeah, once I realized I had to somehow come up with this row needs to be removed, this item added, this one edited... The user could have worked for hours on the thing adding and removing stuff, taking a break, then the computer crashes or they lose power and all the changes held in the complicated "cancellable" classes would evaporate!
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In many situations I like the revised setting being reflected immediately - say in a graph - BUT to still have the ability to cancel and undo those changes. A little more work for the programmer but not hard and the user is the one whose time and brain space must be protected at almost any cost.
Where the results are not immediately visible I'd like to have a cancel button.
Martin
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