High Craig,

That's an example of an UI that looks like 99% as the guidlines say. O.k Bob might not follow those, but it's not active. Only some colors are - for whatever reason - a bit - ouch. I think the user has a strange problem with his color sight. I would get a headache soon. But that's a matter of taste. IOW this is implemented by MS (as far as MS uses it's own guidelines, there are known examples) and the (now gone) color settings are a on users dream. I feel better with that (User choosen but strange to me) then the now prefabricated ugly color schems MS forces me to. I had a clearly visible captions and highlights that suits me (I'm a bit color blind on red) and now all I have to use all the strange lilac or more ugly pastel color.

It all depends on money. I'm normaly paid to have a fast reliable answer so I would try the simpler one. OTOH I can not stop the customer from giving me more money if he insists. You understand, there will be extra charge for work done unwillingly and reputation tarnished.

MS should spend lesser money on UI research and more on documentation. VFP help must be the last usable. Not my words. This is from inside MS. MS simply has fired there tech doc people. (If you complain I try to understand Powershell for years. There is no usable doc out there. This also proved from inside MS. In general I choose to move the stuff to linux and use the bash. Much much better info available. Any help is greatly appreciated.)

Legal problems? This is distracting from the problem. Are you shure the use of your code is allways legal or moralic?
Things legal in germany are illegal in the U.S. and vice versa. I can hack VFP to fix the bugs MS is unwilling to fix or I can pay our chinee friend to do so. You can't.

And back to our OK button. You understand the concept of advocatus diaboli?
All my statement was that the button should be DEFAULT and anything else only on rare places with a good reason. But clearly not just DEFAULT as the only true way.

>I said nothing about forcing something on your customer. A consultant "consults". That means he advises. He does not dictate. Many times customers want things that for what ever reason don't make sense. It could be major faux pas in the UI (http://codinghorror.typepad.com/.a/6a0120a85dcdae970b0120a86d4df2970b-pi). Would you implement that UI if the customer requested it or would you talk to them about why it's a bad idea?
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>It could be they want a specific technical solution that is very difficult to implement, but another, less costly one will make sense. This is where you sit down with the customer and recommend a better way.
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>Keep in mind that Microsoft has spent millions of dollars in UI research, figuring out what works best and what doesn't. Have you or your customer come close to spending that much?
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>What if the customer insist you do something illegal?
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>But...I'm just making recommendations here. As you should to your customer. And the one I suggested does solve the problem asked about in the original post. I could just as easily say that having Alt-O fire the click event of and OK button is ridiculous.
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