Re: [Usability] Showing vs. Displaying

["Eugene O'Connor" <eugene oconnor sun com>]

There is a sense of revealing something that already exists, but is
hidden, in the verb show, so there is a subtle difference in the meaning
of these two verbs.

I agree that the current definition of display in the GDSG does not
capture this distinction - I'll update the GDSG as follows:

display
Use this verb when an item is not already open somewhere in the desktop
environment. The item needs to be opened, added or  launched. 
Example: To display the Background Preferences dialog, right-click on
the desktop, then choose Change Desktop Background.

show
Use this verb when an item is already open somewhere in the desktop
environment, but hidden.        
Example: To show more options, click on the More Options button.

Thanks for pointing that out.
Eugene

Gregory Merchan wrote:
> 
> I was grepping through sources to see how applications remotes are working
> with multi-head (see bug #114219), and I found many translatable strings
> using "display" as a verb. Is this correct? Shouldn't the verb be "show"?
> "Show" is 3 letters and 1 syllable shorter. It is also more familiar having
> a polysemy count of 13 vs. 3 for "display". Is there a meaning disctinction
> dictating the use of either?
> 
> I see the GDP style guide defines "display" as a user action.
> http://developer.gnome.org/documents/style-guide/gnome-glossary-user-actions.html
> It does not define "show", but it uses it.
> 
> Befuddled,
> Greg
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