atw: Re: What do dialog boxes do?

There are several kinds of boxes. Dialog boxes engage you in some
interaction. Therefore I prefer 'You see a dialog box; press Enter to
confirm, etc'. In this way, the actor is clearly identified.

The other kind of box that often I see called a dialog box is in fact a
message box. This kind is not interactive. Here I prefer 'The XAAA
message box appears'. The Blue Screen of Death parades as a dialog box,
but in reality it's mostly a message box, in my experience.

The problem with passive tenses is that the actor is unclear - is the
seen outcome the result of a software process or is it the direct sequel
to a person's pressing a key/clicking a mouse?

The word you choose also depends on the intended audience. If it's
developers, who cares about the niceties of grammar? - your chance of
getting them to speak or write English is about 10^-9. Similarly, if
it's for Americans, then follow wankipedia. If it's for Australians, in
spite of its faults, you could do much worse than believing the big Mac.

Brian



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