[IxDA Discuss] Buttons in a dialog

[Ivo Domburg]

Hello all,

I'm currently working on gui and interaction improvements of a  
content management application. The application runs in a web browser  
but feels more like a desktop application. The application currently  
uses a lot of dialog windows where the user can create and manage  
different kinds of objects like images, calendars and forms. All of  
these dialog windows have two buttons in the bottom right corner:

'Apply' (Save, it doesn't refresh main window -> I think that's wrong);
'Close' (Close dialog, refresh main window to show changes, if any).

I'm considering to change it to:

'OK' (Save and close dialog, refresh main window to show changes, if  
any);
'Apply' (Save, refresh main window);
'Cancel' (Close dialog without saving).

The 'Apply' button will only be used in dialogs that handle  
parameters of visible objects on a page, so the user can see the  
result of changes without closing the dialog. I'm not sure whether  
the 'Cancel' button should cancel all changes made in the dialog or  
only those that were not yet applied by pressing the 'Apply' button.  
And more in general I'm asking myself if this small change will be  
worth all engineering effort that will be needed.
Any comments or ideas are greatly appreciated.

(oh, since this is my first 'real' post on this list: Hello, I'm Ivo).

Ivo