Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!apple!lsr
From: lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Centering Dialogs
Message-ID: <17588@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 23 Sep 88 06:38:50 GMT
References:  <10132@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <537@uva.UUCP> <2411@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Reply-To: lsr@apple.com.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein)
Organization: Advanced Technology Group, Apple Computer
Lines: 43

In article <2411@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> mikem@uhccux.UUCP (Mike Morton) writes:
>
>Especially for dialogs invoked with the keyboard (including command-key
>equivalents, but also alerts in response to Clear, Backspace, etc.), this
>makes the dialog location seem non-deterministic to a user who hasn't
>yet psyched out your scheme.  ("Look, Irma, now the dang thing's over

The short answer to this issue is to do some user testing.  Gut feelings are
often not correct.

Nevertheless, my gut feeling would be that centering it on the window
containing the cursor would be confusing until it was explained to the user.
I seem to recall a recommendation that alerts appear in a consistent place all
the time.  (Doesn't Microsoft do this?)

I think it would be acceptable to center on the main screen, because that is
likely to be a focus of attention since the menu bar is there.  Even if
the dialog appears as a result of a keyboard command, the user probably will
tend to have the main screen right in front of him/herself.  This also has
the advantage of being easy to do, and consistent with a lot of other
programs (since it is easy to do, most programmers are likely to do this).

Centering it on the screen containing the active window is a good idea.  One
problem is that you may end up obscuring the very information that is
needed.  (The user may have moved the window over there, explicitly to get
away from new windows popping up on the main screen.)

Conversely, FullWrite places its Spell Checking dialog on a different screen
from the document being checked, so as not to obscure anything important.
(As someone pointed out, however, if that screen is off, the user is in
trouble.)

One suggestion that hasn't been mentioned is to let the user choose the
position.  I tried a demo of a program called JonathanDraw that draw a black
rectangle the size of the dialog, and waited for you to click to position
it.  I found this to be annoying since it required extra work on my part.
Fortunately, this was an option that you could customize.

		 Larry Rosenstein,  Object Specialist
 Apple Computer, Inc.  20525 Mariani Ave, MS 46-B  Cupertino, CA 95014
	    AppleLink:Rosenstein1    domain:lsr@Apple.COM
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