Glossary » undo

undo

the facility for reversing the effects of any given operation.

Some common elaborations of undo include:

• redo facilities – for bringing back the effects of an operation that was undone
• repeat – repeats an operation instead of undoing it
• multiple undo – allows a user to undo a series of operations, not just the most recent one
• selective undo – allows a user to undo any previous operation without undoing everything that occurred after it
• hierarchical undo – as a user undoes some actions and continues with new actions, a hierarchically-organized set of versions is created; these versions may then be accessed and navigated to explore variations
• multi-user undo – in a multi-user system, several issues arise both from a user-interface and technical perspective, e.g. when a user says “undo”, should the undo apply to the last command by the user who is undoing or should it apply to the last command generated by any of the users?