From simon.urbanek at r-project.org  Wed Jul  5 01:43:58 2006
From: simon.urbanek at r-project.org (Simon Urbanek)
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 19:43:58 -0400
Subject: [Rd] options("quit.with.no.save")
In-Reply-To: <44AAC3B7.2080801@stats.uwo.ca>
References: <44AA5FC8.9020106@stats.uwo.ca>
	<17578.34324.125621.658439@stat.math.ethz.ch>
	<1D457B6B-1F1D-4FC0-929B-323E0E3A8CDB@r-project.org>
	<44AAC3B7.2080801@stats.uwo.ca>
Message-ID: <81A89161-0B7A-4753-8DEB-670CAE80BBCF@r-project.org>


On Jul 4, 2006, at 3:38 PM, Duncan Murdoch wrote:

>> I agree - it would be even nicer if there was a way to enable -- 
>> no- save with some environment variable ...
>
> Environment variables in Windows are a mess.  Doing things on the  
> command line or through option() is a lot easier.
>

Although I disagree (about the mess), I was thinking mainly about  
unix here - I'd simply love to put something in my .profile that will  
prevent the annoying question ;).


>> However, I think Duncan's approach is a very bad idea, because it   
>> means that with the same answer will give you opposite result.  
>> This  is a big UI no-no. (Windows users may may think it's a valid  
>> option,  because Microsoft tends to do stupid things like that,  
>> but that's  only because they never think about UI).
>
> I agree that that is a problem.  However, I don't know a better  
> solution:
>   - I want to make it hard for the user to accidentally create a  
> saved workspace.  Just changing the default will mean that people  
> who habitually answer "yes" will still get the wrong result.

I would argue that if someone 'habitually' ignores the default and  
selects yes, then it's his/her deliberate choice and likely not a new  
user, because a new user doesn't yet have such a habit - to the  
contrary, new users are the one most likely influenced by defaults.


>   - I want to make it hard for the user to accidentally lose a  
> workspace.  Hence --no-save is not an option.
>
> The problem with my solution as it stands is that people who  
> habitually answer "yes" will sometimes accidentally lose a workspace.
>

.. and for the reason you stated I think that's a major problem!


>> The correct approach is to change the default button, but  
>> definitely  not the dialog box.
>
> I don't think this is sufficient.
>


Your solution may possibly be more efficient in solving the problem  
you described, but IMHO it causes a much bigger problem. I'd still  
prefer one save too many that any loss of data.

Cheers,
Simon



[Rd] options("quit.with.no.save")
Simon Urbanek