Better site editing save or discard flow in Login dialog box

Currently, if I edit a site but forget to save, and I choose another site on the left side list, I get the following question:

Confirm
This will cancel site editing. Do you want to continue?
[OK] [Cancel] [Help]

I feel this is unintuitive, as in standard practice, programs should ask users whether to save or discard changes, not confirm that they want to proceed discarding changes. In the above case, there are two options:

OK - A positive option which results in a negative action (canceling site editing and discarding changes)
Cancel - A negative option which does not result in any useful action (User is still required to click Save before choosing another site on the left, thus placing more work on the hands of the user).

The following alternative question would be more intuitive and more in-line with how other programs behave:

Site editing
You have edited the current site. Do you want to save your changes?
[Yes] [No] [Cancel]

Note: [Help] button should really be just the [?] button on top right of the question box frame to avoid clutter.

This is intuitive because the selected user option results in a behavior consistent with the option wording:

Yes - A positive option that results in a positive action (saving the changes), then continues with changing to another site.
No - A negative option that results in a negative action (discarding the changes), then continues with changing to another site.
Cancel - A negative action that (in this case) results in a negative but safe action (stays in the site editing mode, does not save or discard changes, does not change to another site).

Related bug: If I edit a site but click the [X] button on top right, the changes are discarded and the Login dialog window is closed without any warning. I expected the above question to be asked in this case as well.

Thanks for your suggestion. Will improve this.

These requests were added to the tracker:
https://winscp.net/tracker/1175
https://winscp.net/tracker/1174

Thanks! Great to see that it's implemented. :D

I also found the same issue with the message box that shows up when I close a window with multiple tabs:

Confirm
Terminate all sessions and close application without saving a workspace?
Press 'No' to enable automatic saving of the workspace.
[Yes] [No] [Cancel] [Help]

There is too much to read and understand, and there is a negative-positive mix-up. The option 'No' doesn't do exactly what the message box says it does. It merely enables the checkbox in the shown 'Save workspace as' dialog by default, but a further user action is required to actually start automatic saving proper.

Perhaps this may be worded better as follows, at the expense of not enabling the automatic saving checkbox by default:

Save workspace
Do you want to save the workspace before closing the application?
[Yes] [No] [Cancel]

Simple and straight to the point. :)

In this case, 'Yes' would bring up the 'Save workspace as' dialog. The user can manually enable automatic saving in this dialog, if desired. On clicking OK in this dialog, WinSCP should save and exit. (positive option -> positive action)

'No' should exit as normal (user has chosen not to save the workspace). (negative option -> negative action)

Clicking 'Cancel' anywhere should cancel all actions including terminating sessions or exiting (window should stay intact).

As for a window with only one tab, if you don't wish to present the user with an opportunity to save the workspace (I personally think you should anyway), the alternative question could be:

Close application
Are you sure you want to close the application?
This will terminate the session '<Session Name>'.
[OK] [Cancel]

ADTC wrote:

Confirm
Terminate all sessions and close application without saving a workspace?
Press 'No' to enable automatic saving of the workspace.
[Yes] [No] [Cancel] [Help]

There is too much to read and understand, and there is a negative-positive mix-up. The option 'No' doesn't do exactly what the message box says it does. It merely enables the checkbox in the shown 'Save workspace as' dialog by default, but a further user action is required to actually start automatic saving proper.

Previously (before workspaces were introduced), the message read "Terminate all sessions and close application?". I cannot change a meaning of a default action, because users are obviously used to just press Enter. So it still need to close the application without doing anything more.

As for a window with only one tab, if you don't wish to present the user with an opportunity to save the workspace (I personally think you should anyway), the alternative question could be:

Quote:
Close application
Are you sure you want to close the application?
This will terminate the session '<Session Name>'.
[OK] [Cancel]

Only 15% of users ever have more than one session opened. I do not want to confuse the remaining 85% :)

Thanks for clarifying. Even if you keep the current flow, I hope you will at least reduce the clutter and use shorter sentences that are quicker and easier to read and understand, and act on. I recommend that the dialog does not talk about saving workspace (except as a minor hint that the user can do so) as it doesn't actually save workspace.

Anyway thanks for your consideration.