KiCad error dialog rant

[michael.hill]

All I'm saying is that this page would be very beneficial for the developers to read and implement:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa511277.aspx

Much of the time, an error box is thrown when it should just be a notification or just a caution.

Just a small rant.

[Bored@Work]

While there is a lot wrong with KiCAD's user interface I find it a bit ironic to cite Microsoft as an authority in user interfaces. The company that gave us the General Protection Fault and more user interface rubbish per pixel^2 than any other OS vendor.

[Mechatrommer]

I find it a bit ironic to cite Microsoft as an authority in user interfaces.

care to provide link on other UI standard guide? because the Windows is all we muggles know. any other softwares that is not following by the rule is quite difficult to grasp, at least in Windows realm i believe. developping a linux originated softwares and expect Windows users to understand the standard is a bit ironic? imho. esp when displaying a friendly reminder with a big red exclamation mark right next.

[mariush]

The Microsoft document is a good start ... but you shouldn't do absolutely as it's said there. Microsoft for a long time went against their own guidelines whenever it suited them ... see MSN Messenger's interface or Microsoft Office's change of menus and the ribbon.

If you're interested about this subject, search for "Human Interface Guidelines". Actually, the Wikipedia article for this phrase has a lot of links to documents for various platforms, and some of these documents also include studies and explanations regarding why they chose to do it in a particular way and why they recommend it that way.

PS. And if you're really interested about signs, icons, usability.. there's an excellent series of articles at Slate that I really recommend to anyone:

Part 1 : 

The secret language of signs
They're the most useful thing you pay no attention to. Start paying attention.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/signs/2010/03/the_secret_language_of_signs.html

and

Part 5 :

The Big Red Word vs. the Little Green Man
The international war over exit signs.

 http://www.slate.com/articles/life/signs/2010/03/the_big_red_word_vs_the_little_green_man.html

are 2 of the best in the series, in my opinion.

[michael.hill]

Just because Messenger is bad doesn't mean that the bar should be lowered to that level because it's "acceptable".  When KiCad reports all alerts as errors, it creates a really confusing experience for the user.