Code Crunching

By now everyone who deems himself at least a medium level programmer for Windows applications, should have at least looked at Windows Vista. And while you toyed around with it, you probably have seen the new Windows Vista task dialogs.

Windows Vista Taks Dialog

Personally, I do really like them. They are clear, tell the user what problem was encountered and gives well explained options. Yes, I know, the good content part still depends on the developer, but you should get the meaning without to much picking at me ;-)

Now, there are many components out there, and the best around is from Jeremy North, called TJSDialog. It supports all Windows Vista features, as well as a few more carefully selected ones. So, if you target Vista users, this component is at least worth looking at.

However, I ask myself something else. While components like Jeremy's allow us to display those dialog types on Windows 9X/XP/... should we as programmers do just that? Those dialogs come with Windows Vista and Vista users will get used to them, as they see them more and more all over their system. But now let's think about our granny, finally getting used to her good old Windows XP and now your application comes along with a totally new style for dialogs. She doesn't know this style, and probably she just thinks: What's that?! So, what do you think, should our applications use the Vista style dialogs on older system, just because they do look good? Is it worth it creating every dialog twice, ...? I am not sure myself. And don't misunderstand me, I really think the new style dialogs are simply great, but shouldn't we keep them to Vista where the user knows what hits her (or him)?