I want to suggest two things:
1. If the user has changed a setting in the settings dialog, and clicks the X to close it (or presses Escape), please pop up a Yes/No confirmation that they are cancelling the settings they were trying to apply.
Clicking "cancel" is clear that you are cancelling, and likewise clicking "OK" is clear that you're confirming, but the function here of simply closing the dialog is not obvious to a new user. Many other programs apply settings immediately, or use modeless dialogs for similar things, and it's easy to not realize that closing the window is going to undo what you were just trying to do.
I'm not suggesting IrfanView should change its design paradigm to be like other programs, but I think it would help alleviate problems for someone setting up the program for the first time if these potentially unexpected settings cancels had a confirm step.
2. If the settings fail to save when pressing "OK", could you generate a warning alert to inform the user that this is happening?
This is a similar issue, but if for example the user picked the wrong option at install about where to send the INI file, it seems that if it fails to save this is a completely silent error. A warning at the point of clicking "OK" that it is not able to do its function would help the user understand what is going on and resolve the issue.
Both of these address a problem I've had many times in the past while trying to change IrfanView settings and not understanding whether they are applying or not. Sometimes it is not clear to a new user what a setting is supposed to do, and having the settings accidentally fail to save adds another layer of confusion on top of that.
Finally, one other suggestion: "Load only associated types while moving through folder" should be the default setting in the Extensions panel. I strongly suspect that most users of this program do not want Irfanview to try and play music and video files and text files. The default setting instead loads a confusing custom collection of unexpected file types, and makes this program a little bit unusable for my primary purpose of browsing through image files.
1. If the user has changed a setting in the settings dialog, and clicks the X to close it (or presses Escape), please pop up a Yes/No confirmation that they are cancelling the settings they were trying to apply.
Clicking "cancel" is clear that you are cancelling, and likewise clicking "OK" is clear that you're confirming, but the function here of simply closing the dialog is not obvious to a new user. Many other programs apply settings immediately, or use modeless dialogs for similar things, and it's easy to not realize that closing the window is going to undo what you were just trying to do.
I'm not suggesting IrfanView should change its design paradigm to be like other programs, but I think it would help alleviate problems for someone setting up the program for the first time if these potentially unexpected settings cancels had a confirm step.
2. If the settings fail to save when pressing "OK", could you generate a warning alert to inform the user that this is happening?
This is a similar issue, but if for example the user picked the wrong option at install about where to send the INI file, it seems that if it fails to save this is a completely silent error. A warning at the point of clicking "OK" that it is not able to do its function would help the user understand what is going on and resolve the issue.
Both of these address a problem I've had many times in the past while trying to change IrfanView settings and not understanding whether they are applying or not. Sometimes it is not clear to a new user what a setting is supposed to do, and having the settings accidentally fail to save adds another layer of confusion on top of that.
Finally, one other suggestion: "Load only associated types while moving through folder" should be the default setting in the Extensions panel. I strongly suspect that most users of this program do not want Irfanview to try and play music and video files and text files. The default setting instead loads a confusing custom collection of unexpected file types, and makes this program a little bit unusable for my primary purpose of browsing through image files.
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