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First thought, for "About This Mac" I usually want the model number and serial number.

Second thought, is it fashionable now to not include a "Cancel" button in settings dialogs?

Many times, I have navigated all of the pages of a settings dialog to change a setting or multiple settings, then realise I liked it better how it was before, and have no idea what the settings were before I changed them.

Just yesterday I wanted to try a new theme in Xfce - change the theme, not happy with it, and no idea out of the 50 themes what it was before I changed it, so now I have to go through every option to find the one that was (approximately?) what it was before.




I'm not sure a 'Cancel' button is the right UI, because settings pages are a confusing mess - sometimes a change takes place right away, other times you need to press the 'OK' button first. Perhaps an 'Undo' action is the better approach, just like making changes in a document?


True enough, exactly how Windows XP had it :) - OK/Cancel/Apply


macOS settings have been instant-apply since at least the first OS X. Sometimes it’s annoying but for many settings it’s the only model that makes sense (like, if you have a setting controlling which WiFi network the computer is connected to, how can you delayed-apply that?).




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