Often when you are working in Windows, the program you are running will prompt you for information by popping up a little window. These usually have an OK button and a Cancel button in the bottom right corner. This prompt window is called a Dialog Box. A dialog box is used when a program needs to ask the user for information, or in other words, when the program wants to have a dialog with the user.
In dialog boxes, there is generally a “default” button, that is, a button that will be clicked if the “Enter” key on the keyboard is pressed. The default button is set by the program to execute the most likely action. The default button will change if you use the Tab key to change which control is currently selected. Only one button in a window can be the default button.
Remembering back to our WinKey shortcuts, one of the handier shortcuts is WinKey + R, which opens the Run dialog window. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, the default button is tinted with the highlight color (and it pulses the highlight color…except within browsers):
In Windows XP, the default button is outlined with the highlight color:
In either case, if you were to hit the Enter key on the keyboard, Windows would run the Notepad program.
Remembering back to the tip about the Escape key, in most dialog windows, pressing Escape will accomplish the same thing as clicking the Cancel button. This is not always the case, but Windows programmers try to choose the “least destructive” action to take when the Escape key is pressed. In other words, we try to make it difficult to accidentally shoot yourself in the foot.
Notice the text in the buttons for the Run window pictured above. The third button, “Browse…” ends with an ellipsis, or three continuation dots (…). Windows standards indicate that the ellipsis is used to indicate that the action will open a dialog box or in some way ask the use for more input. You will see this convention on buttons, in menu options and other places.
Thus in the Run window, clicking the “Browse” button opens yet another dialog window, this time the “Browse” dialog. The Browse dialog also has an OK button and a Cancel button, so the same rules apply: OK is the default button (the one executed when you hit the Enter key), and Cancel is the button that will be executed if you press the Escape key.
There are many “standard” dialogs in Windows including dialogs for opening a file, saving a file, selecting a color, etc. The more you use Windows the more you will become familiar with these standard dialogs.
Note that there is a new trend to move away from floating windows for dialogs such as Find. For example, in Internet Explorer 8 and Mozilla Firefox, Ctrl + F opens a dialog strip at the top or bottom of the window. The Escape key trick works here, so just punch it to get rid of the Find strip. These dialog strips are becoming popular, so don’t be surprised if something slides out from one of the sides of your window asking for information.
Next time we’ll have a formal introduction to the very nature of what a “window” is. See you then…
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