Re: Word-a-Day: button, command button, toggle button

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Thu, 2008-04-24 at 16:05 +0100, Calum Benson wrote:
> On 23 Apr 2008, at 17:52, Shaun McCance wrote:
> 
> > Refer to a button using its label and the word "button".
> > For common buttons such as 'Cancel' or 'Help', you may
> > simply'use the button label when instructing the user
> > to click the button.
> >
> > Correct:
> > Click the 'Theme Details' button.
> > Click 'Close'.
> 
> So, this brings up a presentation issue, which is a bit of a  
> digression...
> 
> How are we saying the label should be written-- in quotes?  Leave it  
> up to the DocBook stylesheets (which currently render labels in bold,  
> no quotes)? What about for non-DocBook documents, or plain text  
> documents?

The current terminology recommendations have markup
guidelines.  I always found this a bit odd, because
the terminology guidelines tell me how to use the
word "button", but the markup guidelines tell me
how to mark up button labels, not the word itself.

So part of my plan for the Style Guide revamp is
to have a separate section for markup guidelines.
What I would like to do is tell people how to mark
things up in different environments.  So the entry
for buttons might look like:

DocBook: Use the guibutton tag.
Mallard: Use the gui tag.
Rich text: Bold.
Plain text: Use quotation marks.

Rendering tools for DocBook or Mallard would be
expected to match the rich text recommendation.

> > If possible, insert the icon after the label in parentheses.
> 
> I think the need for parentheses is related to the last point-- if the  
> label isn't quoted, then the parantheses look a bit redundant and odd  
> IMHO.  But I admit they're kind of necessary when the label is quoted.

Hmm, I see your point.  With my sample markup
recommendation above, we should decide based
on bolded labels.  Quotation marks would only
be used where bold is unavailable, and I can't
think of any place where you can insert images
but not bold text.

--
Shaun