Explore the Undo/Redo – Part II

Posted May 20, 2007
Filed under: Programming, UI, Undo/Redo |

Here is the list of the types and variations of the Undo/Redo functionalty.

1.Blind Undo/Redo

The Undo/Redo functionality without specifying the operation which will be performed.

2.Instructional Undo/Redo

The menu item offering the Undo/Redo functionality also displays the operation which will performed. This makes use of the DisplayName of the edit to be performed.

3.Single Undo/Redo

The typical notepad style supporting Undo/Redo only for the last operation performed.

4.Multiple Undo/Redo

Multiple Undo/Redo supports unlimited no of edits for all the opertaions performed.

5.Multiple Undo/Redo with the UI to choose the number of edits.

Its the typical MS word style. The UI(toolBar Button) shows the DisplayName of  all the edits in the Undo/Redo stack providing the option to choose the multiple edits to be performed. This provides the option of performing Undo on the last N opertaion at one shot.

More sophisticated implementation would be allow the user to choose the edit which need not correspond to the last edit operation.

For Eg:

Operation 1- Delete a line

OPeration2- Find Replace operation performed for a particular word

What if user wants to perform Undo for operation1 but NOT for operation2?

My next post will be on the Challenges that I faced in implementing Multiple (Instructional) Undo/Redo .

3 comments so far

  1. abstrusemind on May 21, 2007

    Hi,

    I didn’t exactly understand how blind undo/redo works…. how exactly is it different from Multiple Undo/Redo. “without specifying the operation which will be performed” what do u mean by this??

    Reply
  2. pav1@weekends on May 24, 2007

    Blind Undo/Redo operation may be single/multiple Undo/Redo but the UI (menuItem) offering this functionality doesn’t display the info about the operation that is going to be performed as a part of Undo/Redo. The menu Item simply displays Undo and NOT “Undo Renaming the Variable”.

    Multiple Undo/Redo offers the UI to choose the edit from the list, displaying the edit operation that is going to be performed.

    Reply
  3. Minute on June 19, 2008

    Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation :) Anyway … nice blog to visit.

    cheers, Minute.

    Reply

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