Re: [Usability] "About" menu items galore...

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Shaun McCance wrote:

> Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 02:41:43 -0500
> From: Shaun McCance <shaunm gmail com>
> To: Jason Hoover <jasonhoover verizon net>
> Cc: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] "About" menu items galore...
>
> On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 21:31 -0400, Jason Hoover wrote:
> > On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 17:53 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> > > Documentation is owned by someone else.  This could stand to be made
> > > clearer in some cases and a section on the program copyright could be
> > > included in the doucmentations as well.  (I wonder how much disk space
> > > could be saved by having a standard folder containing all the licensese
> > > instead of repeating them in every About Dialog and in every program
> > > manual and in some cases ever file of source code.)
> >
> > That explains that. It'd make a lot of sense, especially considering
> > quite a few applets don't even show what license they're written under!
> >
> > I wonder, why is it called the "Titlepage" (not a real word, by the way)
> > and kept at the top, if all it contains is legal and copyright
> > information and no actual title?
>
> 1) It does contain the title, as well as other information.  If the
> title isn't at the top, there's a bug.

In this case title could refer to title as in ownership (think title
deed).

> 3) It's pretty standard practice to provide author credits, publisher
> information, and copyright notices on the titlepage.  The nicer books
> will have a true titlepage, set in full splendor by a professionl
> typographer, as well as a page listing all the legal mumbo jumbo.
> Yelp just sort of condenses everything into one information page.
>
> 4) Titlepage is a word.

Or it is is two words, which I think was the original point being made.

There must be lots of really good German programmers because I cannot
think why so many developers have a fascination with creating new compound
words.  Sure it is fine in German and in compound words like website occur
in common usage a lot but web site is marginally easier to read and keeps
spellcheckers happy so I tend to split the compound words where the
spellchecker disagrees with me.

- Alan