Re: Modal Dialogs on the Macintosh

[Wookye@aol.com]

At  Thu, Apr 27, 1995, Steve Strassmann wrote:

> At 11:44 AM 4/27/95, Tom Bonura wrote:
>  >>In our group we just finished an application that mainly consists of a
> >>sequence of modal dialogs.
>  >>
>  >>We had some discussion in the group whether this is allowed by the
>  >>interface guidelines or should be considered poor style.

> My gut reaction is yes, modal dialogs are almost always horrible
> and should only be used as a last resort. It's very hard for me
> to imagine a situation that justifies a series of them. It sounds
> like you want something like a "slide show", and you should provide
> GO NEXT buttons (and possibly GO BACKWARDS as well). There's no need
> for the slide show window itself to be modal.

In Straz's metaphor, the User can go backward and forward thru
the "screens". If you have System 7.5, you can see a nice example
in the Macintosh Guide in the Finder. This has a table of contents
and various other features as well.

Another possible metaphor is random access; for example, draw
a series of Index Card Tabs on the background of your dialog. 
Label each Index Card Tab with the name of a screen. Each Tab is
really a button that changes the content area of the card to the
selected screen. This technique is commonly used in HyperCard
and I like it so much that I've used it in other applications when
the number of "screens" is small.

Yet another possibility is to lead the User thru a sequence of
screens by having a series of icons along the top or left border
of the dialog. Initially, all the icons except the first one are
dimmed, and the content area is the first (or an introductory)
screen. There are various ways to complete the first screen;
then that icon is dimmed and the next one is hilighted, and so on.

And another is used in the Preferences settings of a number of
programs, such as TCP Connect II. They use the metaphor of the
old Macintosh Control Panel: there is a series of icons in a
vertical scrolling pane down the left. Each icon has its name
under it for clarity. Clicking on an icon fills the content area
with the selected screen. This is sort of random-sequential and
has the advantage of supporting a lot of screens and yet still
affording good visibility.

As Straz said, none of these dialogs need be modal.

_Steve