| From: | |
| Date: | 28 Feb 2001 at 02:50:13 |
| Subject: | Re: Ellipsis notation with interactive commands (style-guide issue) |
----- Original Message -----
From: "Allan Odgaard" <Duff@DIKU.DK>
To: <amiga-c@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 4:00 PM
Subject: ga-c] Ellipsis notation with interactive commands (style-
issue)
> Dear list, let me once again go a little bit off topic,
>
> According to a book I read, the convention about placing three dots
> after interactive commands (e.g. "Save as...") originates from Apples
> Lisa and was later adopted by the Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, Microsoft
> Windows and Motif.
>
> However, according to this book they should only be used when the dialog
> box following the command issued needs additional info from the user
> (thus can also be aborted).
>
> So it would be wrong to have a menu item named "About..." or "New
> window...", since these do not require additional info from the user.
>
The thinking is: When opening a new window, the user is going do something
with it and that's going to require additional user input. In any case and
especially relevant with 'about' windows and the like, the user is allmost
certainly eventually going to click a button or close gadget, press 'enter'
or do something, to close the window. Mouse clicks and key presses literally
are user input. Hence, any command that opens a window or requester requires
additional user input and as such should have an elipse after it.
Whether that was the original convention or a later interpretation or
refinement, I don't know, but I've allways thought it makes perfect sense.
> I don't have the Amiga style-guide, so I cannot check if C= modified the
> convention when they adopted it. If not then we sure have a lot of
> programs which violate it... I just looked at Workbench and here we have
> "About...", "New drawer" and "Information..." which are all wrong
> according to the original convention. Actually, even if C= did modify
> the convention to say "commands opening additional windows" then
> Workbench still violate it...
>
> Any comments?
If I recall correctly, the Amiga Style Guide specifically states that any
command opening a window or requester should have an elipse after it.
Regards, Rod
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/