Author Topic: Modal dialogs are a pain  (Read 3883 times)

ReneMiner

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Modal dialogs are a pain
« on: April 12, 2021, 23:21:45 »
What i hate about working with the commander is the way dialogs are handled.
The always pop up in the center of the window - obviously to cover as nuch as opossible that i can not look behind. And then always bing/bing when i try to move it away - so i have to forget what is was typing, cancel the dialog - look for the information the dialog requested and then try again. Or/ in windows (not PE/RE) i just open the explorer to look for that what is behind the dialog in another window.

Why do those dialogs need to be modal (prevent from any other input and can not be moved?)

I could kill sometimes someone because of this annoying behaviour.

Wouldn"t it be enough to popup the dialog
 in front of all other windows
(alwaysOnTop)
-
 so it can be moved/dragged/ resized and reveal the information thats hidden behind it?
And pop it open not centered on the parent window
but in a corner where it will not cover up the information that is necessary to satisfy the dialog?

Mathias (Author)

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Re: Modal dialogs are a pain
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2021, 07:53:32 »
Center position is standard and what Microsoft recommended guidelines are.  Since you get the dialog when you are doing something.
All program show them in the center of the app. Not seen any program that show them off the side. That would be very weird user experience.
You get the dialog when an error happening after you did something or if the program require input since you called a function to do something and that function require some input..

What dialogs cannot be moved ? I cannot find any dialog windows I cannot move.
Dialog being modal do not prevent them from being moved. It only prevent other windows in the same application to receive input. Since that can cause issues.

Most dialog are modal since the program require input before continues.. It depends on what it is. If the dialog was not modal then the program would be able to enter an unstable state.

In what situation does it popup dialog when you are doing something else ? MC have around 100 dialogs. But almost all of them are only shown when you do an action   to do something , and that action require some input for that action.

You write like all dialog are the problem but I can't see that. So it must be in some special situation. So if you specify in what situation it is a problem I can see if that situation can be handled in a better way