GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 73269
OK stock icon looks like the default button
Last modified: 2013-02-04 04:02:29 UTC
I have an instant-effect settings box with three buttons: Undo, OK and Save Save is the default button, but 'OK' has a picture of the return symbol on it! This is confusing. The OK symbol should be a tick or something, since Gtk+ has a different device for indicating the default button. Actually, it would be good to be able to use any stock icon with any text. For example, I want to use the 'Quit' icon on my 'Logout' button, and the 'Undo' icon on the 'Revert' button, etc. Currently, I've had to cut-and-paste the code from gtkbutton.c, which seems a bit messy.
The first issue is perhaps somewhat related to the issue in bug 53709 about whether the default button should move to the focused button. (Off topic, I might suggest that your OK button should be Close.. I don't think I'd have much of an idea what OK does in that set of buttons... the GNOME UI folks thought that instant apply dialogs shouldn't have a button to close, but if it had to, it was best as "Close") Second issue is: Bug 62466 GtkButton needs way of constructing stock-like buttons
I tried it as 'Close', but the icon looks too much like Cancel. Also, an X looks very negative, when in fact the user is agreeing that the current settings are OK. I've currently got it using the 'Apply' symbol with the text 'OK' ('Apply' as text would be wrong, as it doesn't do anything besides close the window...)
(Just adding comments in response to Owen's recent "should we fix for 2.2" email) I think the only solution to the original problem reported here is to change the stock icon for OK. I'm guessing the 'arrow' icon was probably originally copied from desktops like NeXT where it really was used to mean 'this button will be activated when you press Return', but that's clearly not what it means in GNOME, in many cases.
Without having a design for a replacement, can't consider this for 2.2.
Green checks were common in OK buttons from Borland and maybe others. (I think they looked ugly.) Neither Windows nor OS/2 interface standards suggests icons in dialog buttons. MacOS suggested the unlabeld circled question mark for a Help button, but no others. NeXT suggested the return symbol if and only if it was on the default button; which may have been labelled something other than "OK". I don't know offhand if any of those interface standards forbade such icons. (I would do away with them because a mix of buttons with icons and buttons without icons does not appeal to me.)
What about just plain text buttons? Those default dialog button icons were always sort of weird. Just have well worded labels on the buttons. Putting icons everywhere just because they "are cool" is not a good reason, I guess we could just ditch the dialog button icons and use icons where they add to the value. I guess neither Windows nor MacOS uses icons for dialog buttons - icons are better used on places where they clearly add to the clarity of the task.
Created attachment 13025 [details] [review] Remove icons from GtkButton's with stock id's
The patch removes the alignment/hbox/image from GtkButton. GtkButton::use_stock is still useful for i18n-ized labels. I can't think of any case where we'd want stock images left of stock labels, so removing for all seems OK. Those who want it can still pack it in.
I'd prefer to keep the button icons. It's really a big improvement now that you can see the Next, Cancel, etc button without having to read the text. The icons are especially important at the moment because of the change to the default button ordering. Also, I find it useful that all Delete type operations have the Delete icon, so if you chose the wrong operation you can see instantly that it's got the wrong icon. Anyway, how about just copying the Yes icon and tinting it yellow for a new OK icon?
Well, the HIG (IIRC) recommends that one would put some good thought into button labels, thus those should be something the user reads. So, instead of "cancel/ok" rather use something that makes sense. Of course this is not that relevant with stock dialogs etc, that have those "generic" button labels, but I would agree that the buttons should not have an icon by default. I mean, we have got past the "Gee! Look! We have icons!" -phase by now. We should use icons where it makes sense, not just because I happened to draw icons for those buttons. /tig
We have a setting now which allows suppressing the stock images, therefore the issue should be largely resolved, once the setting is settable from the control center. Keeping this open on a future milestone for a possible redesign of the Ok stock icon..
Comment on attachment 13025 [details] [review] Remove icons from GtkButton's with stock id's Obsolete based on matthias's last comment.