atw: Use of ellipsis
- From: Charles Cave <charles_cave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "austechwriter @ freelists . org" <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 09:23:12 +1100
Ilana,
The ... after a menu name indicates there are further sub menus,so you would
probably say something like "Choose the File > New menu item" even though
the New is displayed on the menu.
The ellipsis is a usability device on software, but not essential for
documentation.
I would refer to the Microsoft Manual of Style for the final word.
Charles
> Ilana Cohney <Ilana.Cohney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Thanks all for your suggestions for making more "user friendly"
> teminology.
> I did quite an interesting study of some existing databases and found
> that
> the terminology used for the same functions differed widely, some
> terms
> actually quite surprising. Anyone heard of a Word Wheel? It is
> quite some
> bright spark decided to call a Lookup List.
> Anyway, does anyone know of the significance of using an elipses (
> ...) I
> have seen them at the end of menu items, tooltips, popup windows and
> dialog
> boxes. There does not seem to be any consistency about its usage.
> Some
> terms such as Save ... or New ... use it while others such as Sort
> don't.
> It seems to be especially popular by programers when naming popup
> windows
> and dialog boxes. I find that they do not add anything to the
> documentation
> but added clutter. Did you include them when naming menu items and
> windows
> or leave them out? Should we get rid of them altogether?
> Ilana Cohney
>
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Charles Cave
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Email: charles_cave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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