Re: Newbie question: forcing data format during saveDocumentTo:
Re: Newbie question: forcing data format during saveDocumentTo:
- Subject: Re: Newbie question: forcing data format during saveDocumentTo:
- From: "Alastair J.Houghton" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 09:21:42 +0100
On Thursday, September 4, 2003, at 07:32 am, email@hidden wrote:
I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. I have been
designing software for very unsophisticated users for fifteen years
now, and in this case I want it absolutely clear that when they export
the data it is NOT a Save As... When two actions lead to completely
different results, they should not be lumped together.
How does your Export option do anything different from a Save As? From
a user's point of view, you still end-up with a file on the disk (so
they have saved it, right?).
I believe the Cocoa boys gave us these two actions for a reason, and
carefully thought through the distinctions between them.
Sure. Don't forget though that Cocoa used to be part of the NeXT GUI,
which was quite different, both in terms of appearance and in terms of
who it was aimed at.
I will allow that there are plenty of applications that include
less-capable file types in the save as dialog, along with the
appropriate warnings, and many of them work just fine. But in all
those cases the new version of the data is at least usable by the
application that just saved it. That is not the case here. Once that
data goes out, it's not coming back.
I did wonder if you were calling it Export because you couldn't load it
again. IMO it's still the wrong thing to do; you're changing the name
of the save operation because you are unable to load the file back into
your program, which is a distinction based on your program's *loading*
behaviour and nothing to do with saving. Personally, I'd still use the
Save As box, but if I couldn't load the data once it was saved like
this, I'd warn the user when they saved, and I wouldn't clear the
document changed flag (so that they get asked to save if the
application terminates).
I would also say that, despite being a techie myself, I find programs
with Export and Save As harder to use, because I never know whether the
file format I'm after is in the Export box or the Save As box (it
usually isn't obvious, so sometimes I have to try both). I suspect a
lot of users will have that problem.
OK, enough of that. I'm afraid I may have come off as rather snippy;
sorry about that.
Not at all. I was just trying to provide an explanation as to why
Scott (and I) think Export is confusing.
That was not intended. I really do appreciate your feedback. What was
my question again?
You wanted to know how to get rid of the native file type in your
Export box. I'm afraid I don't know (I wouldn't use an Export box
anyway ;->). I'm sure someone else can help though.
Kind regards,
Alastair.
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