Well, the problem with your argument is that reality doesn't have an undo feature. you say: Kill my entire family. I say: are you REALLY sure about that? in the time I ask you you have a chance to think about the severity of the action you just asked me to perform.
however what goes on inside a computer isn't reality.
Yes, everything should have an undo feature that should be stored along with the document when you close an application it should just store whatever documents you had open, in whatever state they were in, and how they got to that state in a 'document database' based on the type of document. This isn't limited to word processing, photoshop et al should do it. it makes sense.
on the subject of deleting files...
The trashcan is an amazingly good idea for undoing deletes on files. A major issue I have is that most(all) OS's dont implement multilevel undo's but they should.
The only time you should see a confirmation box is something that is completely undoable eg.
Are you sure you want to format your harddrive while setting every bit of it to 0, you will never get this data back if you continue. YES NO.
of course all this should be possible if the OS implemented a database driven filesystem, and imposed a 'standard' for major file types, e.g. all word processors use the OSDoc format so they can all use the same data stored in the same place of the FileDatabaseSystem. And these document formats implemented complete undo history all the way back to 'new empty document'.
Finally on the topic of undos....
it should be possible to undo a particular action you did say 5 actions ago, yet keep the actions you performed after it...
eg I type
The Cat Sat
then I hit the BOLD TYPE button then I type
On The Mat
I should be able to go into my action list and remove the hit of the bold button, but still have the text
Slashdot Mirror
first an arguement against you:
Well, the problem with your argument is that reality doesn't have an undo feature.
you say: Kill my entire family.
I say: are you REALLY sure about that?
in the time I ask you you have a chance to think about the severity of the action you just asked me to perform.
however what goes on inside a computer isn't reality.
Yes, everything should have an undo feature that should be stored along with the document when you close an application it should just store whatever documents you had open, in whatever state they were in, and how they got to that state in a 'document database' based on the type of document. This isn't limited to word processing, photoshop et al should do it. it makes sense.
on the subject of deleting files...
The trashcan is an amazingly good idea for undoing deletes on files. A major issue I have is that most(all) OS's dont implement multilevel undo's but they should.
The only time you should see a confirmation box is something that is completely undoable eg.
Are you sure you want to format your harddrive while setting every bit of it to 0, you will never get this data back if you continue.
YES NO.
of course all this should be possible if the OS implemented a database driven filesystem, and imposed a 'standard' for major file types, e.g. all word processors use the OSDoc format so they can all use the same data stored in the same place of the FileDatabaseSystem. And these document formats implemented complete undo history all the way back to 'new empty document'.
Finally on the topic of undos....
it should be possible to undo a particular action you did say 5 actions ago, yet keep the actions you performed after it...
eg I type
The Cat Sat
then I hit the BOLD TYPE button
then I type
On The Mat
I should be able to go into my action list and remove the hit of the bold button, but still have the text
The Cat Sat On The Mat.
anyway this is getting seriously off topic.