Preference windows are similar in appearance to dialog windows, in that they
have a row of buttons along the bottom and no close gadget in the title bar.
Rationale
There is no close gadget because its semantics would be ambiguous. In
other words, it would not be clear to the user exactly what the side-effect
of closing the window is. Will it save the preferences or will it abandon
all changes?
The following set of buttons are always present, positioned horizontally along
the bottom of the window (in this order, from left to right):
- Test
- Applies the settings in the window so that they take effect
immediately. Does not close the window.
- Revert
- Restores the settings in the window to the state they were in when the
window was opened and applies them immediately. Does not close the
window.
- Save
- Applies the settings in the window immediately and saves them
permanently . Closes the window. If it is not possible to save the
settings permanently (e.g. if the disk where they would be saved is
read-only) this button is ghosted.
- Use
- Applies the settings in the window immediately and saves them
temporarily (only for this session) . Closes the window.
- Cancel
- Restores the settings in the window to the state they were in when the
window was opened and applies them immediately. Closes the window.
Layout
The buttons are divided into two groups with Test and Revert in one and
Save, Use and Cancel in the other, where the former group is aligned to the
left, and the latter is aligned to the right. There is a space between the
two groups to separate them visually . All buttons have the same width,
which should be as small as possible (when resizing, only the space between
the groups should grow and not the buttons).