Re: Reset buttons in Customize

[Luc Teirlinck]

Chong Yidong wrote:

   If I'm honest, it was to annoy you.  It's now back in the old order ;-)

But there are still problems, which are regressions.

You changed "Reset to current" to "Reset to current value" and "Reset
to saved" to "Reset to saved value".  This just increases the
confusion you complained about.

Compared to "Reset to current", "Reset to current value" _increases_
the impression that some value is going to be changed, whereas all
that happens is that the user's edits are reverted.

I believe that any confusion is caused by the misleading symmetry with
"Reset to current" and "Reset to Saved" (which your changes enhanced
rather than corrected).  That is exactly why I proposed to rename
"Reset to Current" to "Revert Edits" or similar.

You changed "Use backup value" to "Reset to backup value".  This
implies that some change is going to be completely reverted, like the
other Reset operations do.  This is not the case.  If the saved value
is 1 and you change the saved value to 2, then "Reset to backup value" is
going to reset the current value to 1, but the saved value is still 2.
So if this is going to be something different from "Use backup value",
it should be "Set to backup value".  The "Re" in "Reset" is confusing.
That it partially reverts to a previous value is already implicit in
"backup".

"Show value widget" is completely cryptic.  It took me a long time to
figure out that this was what was originally called "Do not show as
Lisp expression".

You changed "Show initial Lisp expression" to "Show Lisp expression".
This suggest that the _current_ value will be shown as Lisp expression.
Actually the saved (or standard) value gets shown as a Lisp
expression.  (Hence the "initial", which you erased).  Maybe "saved"
would be clearer than "initial".

Changing the latter two to what they were would be a big improvement
over your changes, but maybe it might be better to change "Do not show
as Lisp expression" to "Show current value" (which is exactly what it
does): it shows the _current_ value, rather than the saved (or
standard), and it shows the current _value_, rather than expression.

Summary:

After your changes      Before your changes    Suggested alternatives
-------------------     -------------------    ----------------------

Reset to current value  Reset to current       Discard Edits
                                               Undo Edits
                                               Revert Edits

Reset to backup value   Use backup value       Set to backup value

Show value widget   Don't show as Lisp expression  Show current value

Show Lisp expression  Show initial Lisp expression  
                                               Show saved Lisp expression


Sincerely,

Luc.