[haiku-development] Checking consistency of used strings
- From: "Humdinger" <humdingerb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Development Haiku ML" <haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:31:01 +0100
Hi there!
As I have mentioned a while back, I'd like to go through every Haiku
GUI app and adjust the naming of menus, capitalization and use of
ellipses.
1. Ellipses
I proposed a change to the use of ellipses, see ticket #3284 at
http://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/3284.
Instead of a discussion on Trac, let's stay on the mailing list.
Here's my current suggestion:
> "An ellipsis is a series of 3 dots (...) used to tell the user that a
> control -- often a menu item or button -- will open a window asking
> for
> additional information that is needed to complete the item's
> function. For
> example, "Print..." will open a dialog before it actually starts
> printing.
> No ellipses must be used, if the function already implies the opening
> of a
> window, like "Settings" opening a preferences panel or "Show Log"
> opening a
> window with some data."
That would result in e.g.
Terminal changes to: "New Terminal", "Page Setup", "About Terminal",
"Preferences"
StyledEdit remains: "Open...", "Save As...", "Print..."
MediaPlayer changes to: "File Info", "Playlist", "Settings"
2. Capitalization
Does everyone agree on the definition in the HIG at
http://factory.haiku-os.org/documentation/HIG/ch06s04.html:
> "Use title capitalization in all places except where full sentences
> are
> used. This means that all "important" words and the last word in a
> phrase --
> regardless of importance -- are capitalized. Prepositions, definite
> articles, and conjunctions (as, for, to, the, and, etc.) are
> generally not
> capitalized except when they are the first or last word in the
> phrase, such
> as in "Save As..."."
Examples:
"Capture Entire Screen", "Capture Active Window", "Take Screenshot
after a Delay of x Seconds", "Back to Save", "Always on Top", "Tracker
Always First"
3. Settings, Options, Preferences
* I suggest to only use "Preferences", if the opened panel is a system
preference, also available from Deskbar|Preferences. For example:
Tracker, Deskbar, E-mail.
* All others should be "Settings" as that corresponds to their location
in ~/config/settings/
Most apps have their "Settings" menu item under "Edit", only a few in
it's own menu "Settings": MediaPlayer, Terminal, TV. I first thought
"Settings|Settings" looks a bit stupid, esp. when it's the only menu
item. But IMO it's better than e.g. "Options|Settings".
My work would be limited to providing patches to change strings. Any
coding changes, like e.g. moving "Settings" from "Edit" to it's own
menu (if that would even be desirable) would have to be discussed
elsewhere and implemented by a programmer.
Thanks!
Regards,
Humdinger
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