Undo
sachagreif.com
Undo
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Re: Undo
#2You use Gmail's undo feature as an example, but it doesn't work in the way you prescribe. It's the cheap & easy version of undo that doesn't require building your application around the command pattern: just implement a reasonable delay before making the irreversible change, and show the Undo action during this delay (which is really a "cancel the pending change" action).
No, it's not as clean or as good of an experience for your users, but it works great for applications such as email that perform fundamentally irreversible actions.
Re: Undo
#3You use Gmail's undo feature as an example, but it doesn't work in the way you prescribe. It's the cheap & easy version of undo that doesn't require building your application around the command pattern: just implement a reasonable delay before making the irreversible change, and show the Undo action during this delay (which is really a "cancel the pending change" action). No, it's not as clean or as good of an experi…
Yeah, it's kind of a simulated undo. I'll update the post to point it out better. But anyway, the end result is (almost) the same for the user, which is what counts at the end of the day.
Re: Undo
#4I felt like I was having déja vu reading this article. Happy to have found why, Aza Raskin in 2007: http://alistapart.com/article/neveruseawarning
Re: Undo
#5I just tried sending a message in Gmail, and it didn't give me an option to undo. Is it a feature I have to enable?
Re: Undo
#6I just tried sending a message in Gmail, and it didn't give me an option to undo. Is it a feature I have to enable?
You're right, it's actually a "labs" feature: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1284885?hl=en
Re: Undo
#7I felt like I was having déja vu reading this article. Happy to have found why, Aza Raskin in 2007: http://alistapart.com/article/neveruseawarning
You're right, very similar point. I'll add a link to it, thanks!
Re: Undo
#8I would wager that the reason Undo isn't implemented more often is that it is very difficult.
Executing a DELETE statement and deleting a bunch of data is simple. Implementing "undo" is more difficult, especially for browser based software. How long is the undo valid for? Can you undo every action? How many levels of undo do you support? Do you allow an undo for UPDATE's as well (updating a blog post to set it's content is essentially deleting it, and would probably be something you want undone, for example).
On top of just building the functionality in to your app, communicating it to your users is also difficult since the web app medium is so different than the desktop one.
Re: Undo
#9I would wager that the reason Undo isn't implemented more often is that it is very difficult. Executing a DELETE statement and deleting a bunch of data is simple. Implementing "undo" is more difficult, especially for browser based software. How long is the undo valid for? Can you undo every action? How many levels of undo do you support? Do you allow an undo for UPDATE's as well (updating a blog post to set it's cont…
Instead of actually deleting a record when a user hits 'delete' just flip a boolean that indicates it is 'deleted'. Then undoing a delete action is as easy as flipping the boolean back. For more complex application state you can keep a stack of state or actions (depending on the application and code) and then push onto the stack as the user performs actions (killing off actions older than a certain point). When the user hits undo pop from the history stack and push onto a second 'future' stack to support redo. I agree with the author that it would be nice if more web apps implemented undo/redo. I Iecently implemented it in an interior design app I was working on and it's really not that hard to do.
Re: Undo
#10Easier to implement this if your data is backed by Datomic. I'm working in a HIPAA environment and we're quite happily using Datomic there.