Re: [Fwd: Re: GUI terminology]

["eugene o'connor" <eugene oconnor sun com>]

I'm interested in Christian's point below about the documentation
guidelines serving as UI guidelines - I believe that these guidelines
should be exactly the same. When we were working on the wordlist, we
came across several places where the UI was inconsistent with itself. A
few brief examples:

* Use of both GNOME and Gnome: Choose Programs > Utilities > GNOME
Character Map. But what appears in the titlebar of the application is
"Gnome Character Map".
* Statusbar in gedit, status bar in GTimeTracker and Nautilus.
* Minimize in Window menu, Iconify in Tasklist applet.

These inconsistencies, although apparently minor, make the work of
documenting the UI more difficult. The writer must investigate whether
the terms are actually expressing different concepts. The writer may
also have to use more complex sentence structures to deal with these
inconsistencies. This in turn makes the task of translation more
difficult and time-consuming. The inconsistencies can also confuse and
distract less experienced users. 

It is one of my hopes for the wordlist that it will be used to improve
the internal consistency of the GNOME UI. Any ideas about how we can
work towards this?

> -------- Original Message --------
> From: Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>
> Subject: Re: GUI terminology
> To: Dan Mueth <d-mueth uchicago edu>
> CC: Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>,GNOME Doc List
> <gnome-doc-list gnome org>,Pat Costello
> <Patrick Costello ireland sun com>,"Eugene O'Connor"
> <Eugene Oconnor sun com>
> 
> Dan Mueth wrote:
> > > > This wordlist certainly looks promising! Whoever wrote it (Dan?) needs a
> > > > big, big thanks.
> >
> > I believe it is Eugene O'Connor and Pat Costello who deserve the thanks :)
> 
> Ok, thanks guys!
> 
> > > > * folder / directory
> > > > An even longer time ago, there was a big discussion on gnome-gui-list on
> > > > the pros and cons of "folder" versus "directory" in the UI. If I remember
> > > > correctly the discussion finally ended on "folder" being preferred by more
> > > > people for various reasons. Currently, the state in GNOME regarding this
> > > > terminology is very inconsistent - some apps use folder, others use
> > > > directory. I think a decision on this is very much needed to be in the
> > > > word list if it is to be used as a GNOME terminology guideline...
> >
> > This debate sounds about as fun as the recurring mouse button terminology
> > debate.
> 
> This debate has already been had (the thread is at
> http://lists.gnome.org/archives/gnome-gui-list/2001-April/msg00024.html),
> and most pros and cons were mentioned there, I think.
> I don't think there is a need for recurring discussions if there is
> nothing to be added to that discussion that hasn't already been
> mentioned.
> 
> Anyway, since the documentation guidelines will serve as UI terminology
> guidelines (as basic UI and documentation terminology shouldn't need to
> differ anyway), I really would like to have a recommendation on this
> topic in the word list. It *is* a problem and it doesn't get solved by
> ignoring it, even if it is/was an ugly and non-fun debate.
> 
> Christian
> 
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