[haiku-development] Re: Checking consistency of used strings

  • From: "Jorge G. Mare" <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:12:20 -0800

Hi Humdinger,

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Humdinger wrote:
At the moment it looks like Haiku pretty much emulates Apple's HIG (http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGText/XHIGText.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000365-TPXREF106)
es/XHIGText/XHIGText.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000365-TPXREF106)

I am having a hard time trying to equate what the Haiku HIG says to the capitalization table of the Apple HIG. The Apple HIG is very specific as to what to use for each GUI element, where the Haiku HIG lacks that specificity and can leave a lot of room for individual interpretation; to me, that's a fundamental difference (maybe it's just me).

I'm don't care awfully much on the outcome, as long as it's consistent. It may be a good idea, however, not to dismiss what years of professional research of a successful billion dollar company came up with.
I am all for consistency too, and using the Apple HIG table as a basis for this particular area of our HIG would work IMO.

To me, what we should ask ourselves is what equates to a title in a computer GUI, and apply title case to those elements only. Without giving it much thought, here is a (most probably incomplete) list of elements that would fall under this category:

- Title bars
- Tab sections

Help me, what's the difference of these two:
- Group boxes
- Frames labels

You are right, they the same thing. :)

- Column headings

What about menus and menu items, buttons? Title case, right?

If I had to be honest, from a linguistic point of view, it is really strange that title case is used for all menu entries indistinctively. When the menu entry is used to open a window, then it makes sense to use title case, as the menu label shows the title of the window that it will open. But for menu entries like "Paste Without Formatting," I have a hard time justifying the use title case. I do realize that it would be easier to apply the title case across the board rather than selectively, so maybe that's the way to do. Maybe I am looking at this the wrong way... :)

Other than that, all labels should use normal capitalization; that would be the natural thing IMO and what would also make interpreting the UI easier.

Hopefully other natives have a opinion on that. As I said, as a hun, I may be biased towards capitalization.

Well, I am not a native English speaker either, so take what I say with a grain of salt. :)

BTW, as noted by others on this thread, anything in the HIG that is intrinsically related to language should be locale-specific. That is a given. Perhaps a sentence to that effect could be added to the capitalization section?

Cheers,

Jorge/aka Koki


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