Re: Fw: [Nautilus-list] Proposed string changes to the Nautilus UI

[Alex Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Wed, 3 Apr 2002, John Fleck wrote:

> "desktop background" vs. "desktop" seemed quite awkward to me
> as well when I first confronted it in early drafts of the
> documentation style guide. When actually using the terminology to
> write documentation, however, I've come to realize that having the two
> terms available solves an uncomfortable ambiguity in the term
> "desktop".
> 
> For those who haven't read the style guide, in brief, it says:
> 
> "desktop - The sum of all the parts of your working environment. The
> desktop includes all of your panels and windows, the desktop
> background..."
> 
> "desktop background - The part of the desktop where there are no
> interface graphical items, such as panels and windows."
> 
> The term "desktop", bare, is in such broad use in describing KDE or
> GNOME as a whole that also using it to describe the blank bit where we
> drag icons no longer quite works for me.

The problem I see here is that in normal conversation/usage you very 
seldom use the term for describing "GNOME as a whole", in fact describing 
it to my mother is hard, whereas using the term "the desktop" refering to 
the  place where you store your files and stuff (like on the mac) is 
really common.

So in common conversation people will not use "Desktop Background" when 
discussing where their file was stored, but will probably say "I put it on 
the desktop". Thus the conflict between the two meanings will still 
exist, and the only thing you've gained by using "Desktop Background" in 
the docs is to make the docs use a different name than what the users 
themselves use.

-- 
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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl redhat com    alla lysator liu se 
He's a deeply religious gay photographer looking for 'the Big One.' She's a 
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