[haiku-development] Re: Checking consistency of used strings
- From: Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:33:15 +0100
Hi,
On 2009-12-02 at 19:59:16 [+0100], Jorge G. Mare <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > The problem with title case is that there apparently isn't one title
> > case. The styles not only vary from country to country -- that could be
> > dealt with via different rules for the respective locales -- but within
> > a country it depends on the organization you ask. Quoting Wikipedia
> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_case#Headings_and_publication_titles
> > ):
> >
>
> <snip>
>
> In such cases, I would consult what could be considered an authoritative
> reference on the topic. According to the Basic Manual of Style from a
> Random House English dictionary (which is all I have at hand), the main
> words of titles (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) should be
> capitalized; this is in line with the Oxford Manual of Style that you
> referred to. Being that both Random House ("the world's largest
> English-language general trade book publisher" according to Wikipedia)
> and Oxford make the same recommendation, I think this would be a good
> reference to follow.
I absolutely follow your reasoning with regard to what should be considered
"title case".
What I still have a problem with is "using sentence case in GUI elements
other than those that act as title". I am not talking about places like
checkboxes that are labeled with a sentence or could be worded as a
sentence. But many GUI labels refer to functions. And what I think happens
is that the GUI element is acting as a title for the function. It is
"labeled". As such, I think "title case" may still make sense in GUI
elements other than the obvious title-esque elements, like menu items and
buttons. This is especially true when the label is very short to save
space. Some functions may sound like a sentence (Check mail!). But the
punctuation is usually missing and my gut feeling is that "Check Mail" is a
label/title for the function of the program rather than the sencence "Check
mail!" as in a command to the computer.
Best regards,
-Stephan
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