RE: Use of ellipsis ("...") in menu items

[Jörg Rathlev <joerg jrsoftware de>]

> > I'd love to see a system that uses a verb in every menu item, and
> > consistently uses hints like "...". For example, "Folder settings..."
> > should be either "Show Folder settings" (no ellipsis) or "Change
> > Folder Settings..." (with ellipsis).
> 
> I think the only danger with doing it that way (other than adding extra
> words to the menu, which is always nice to avoid) is that it's not
> necessarily obvious that "Show Folder Settings" would allow you to
> change the settings as well, and equally, that "Change Folder
> Settings..." would allow you to inspect the current settings if that's
> all you wanted to do, rather than being forced to change them.

Yes, you're right. "Open Folder Settings" might work in this case, but
there are some items which don't improve much when adding a verb. For
example, I must admit that changing "About" to "Show Information About
Foo" doesn't make that much sense.

Still, I think that there is generally not enough use of verbs.


Jörg