Re: Style Guide suggestion

[Frederick I Gleef <gleef capital net>]

On Thu, 2 Jul 1998, Marko Macek wrote:
> Gleef wrote:
> > Therefore I would vote that Preferences... be required to be under File.
> > It's not pretty, but it would be consistant.  And besides, Preferences are
> > stored in a File, so it isn't a non-sensical location.
> 
> I disagree. File menu should only contain options related to the file.

What about 'Quit/Exit', what about 'Print' what about myriad other things
that would go in the primary menu of a non-document application?

I think the problem with the argument here is that we are calling the
program's primary menu "File".  I still strongly think we should keep to a
two menu model (currently "File" and "Help") for common menu items, but
perhaps we will have fewer arguments if we change the name of the
primary menu from "File or something else if the program doesn't use
files" to "Main, only main, never anything but Main".

This would mean we would have a consistent two menu model.  The first
menu, "Main" would contain, always, "Quit" (or "Exit", but we need to
pick one which it always should be called).  It will also have, as
appropriate, things like "New", "Open", "Close", "Save", "Save as",
"Options" (application options), "Settings" (document settings), "Print",
and so on.

The second menu would be "Help", it would contain, always, "About".  It
would also have, as appropriate, items to access the documentation and
accompanying literature about the program.

I am assuming that, after ORBit is finished, a robust inter-application
data transfer system for GNOME will be developed, along the lines of the
MacOS Clipboard.  Programs which access this would have an Edit menu, with
the usual suspects ("Cut", "Copy", "Paste") and any thing else appropriate
for the Edit menu.


> > One thing I despise about Windows is having to hunt around each menu for
> > items saying 'Config', 'Options', 'Preferences', etc.  So in GNOME needs
> > one name, and one place.  Also, Preferences (or whatever it is decided to
> > be called), should contain ALL and ONLY application-wide settings.  There
> > should be a separate entry with a standard name (perhaps File Options...)
> > for settings that affect the open file only.
> 
> Options that affect the file should be called "Properties" and should
> be under the "File" menu or equivalend (Document,Image, whatever object
> the application handles).
> 
> Options that affect the application ("Preferences") should be under the 
> "Edit" menu.

Programs that have a document to set "Properties" for will most likely
have an Edit menu, yet you don't put that there?  Programs that don't
have anything that an Edit menu would deal with still need application
"Preferences", yet you would force them to add an Edit menu just for
that menu item?

Also, "Properties" and "Preferences" are too close in sound, this will
confuse some users, who will never remember which one is which.  I prefer
application "Options" and document "Settings".  Both would go in the
programs primary menu (currently called "File", but which I recommend
calling "Main").

 
> > For a look at what not to do, look at Microsoft Word 95's Options menu.
> > You have to go to the same dialog box you select your screen display
> > options from to set a password for the open file.
> 
> I agree. Word97 config options are a big mess to me (perhaps because it
> is too big)

They are a mess not only because they are too big, but because they try to
mix application and document controls, making it hard to identify what the
scope of the changes will be.  They also use too many different widgets,
and many pages are badly organized.

-Gleef