On Sa, 2008-03-29 at 12:27 +0000, Calum Benson wrote: > On 28 Mar 2008, at 17:30, daniel g. siegel wrote: > > > > now i learned, that it was very confusing to have names like nautilus, > > epiphany, cheese for a guy, who hears those names for the first > > time. so > > it would be better to have menu entries like "Texteditor" (gedit) or > > "Document viewer" (evince). but then, who would know how the > > application > > should be called? how could he then submit a bug report to _that_ > > program? how can the person find the projects website on a search > > engine? is a program name senseless? > > The HIG is fairly clear about the wording of Applications menu entries > and tooltips:: > > <http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/desktop-application-menu.html.en#menu-item-functional-description > > > > <http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/desktop-application-menu.html.en#menu-item-tooltips > > > > Historically, when we wrote the HIG we originally wanted all the core > GNOME desktop apps to have functional names only, to alleviate some of > this confusion. Thus there would be no "gedit", no "nautilus", no > "epiphany"; only the GNOME "text editor", "file manager" and "web > browser". > > However, some maintainers (not necessarily the ones I just mentioned, > FWIW-- I can't actually remember which ones now) saw this as an > erosion of their project's identity, and weren't willing to make this > change. So we came to the uneasy compromise of having the functional > name on the menu, but allowing the project name in the application and > its documentation. This undoubtedly does confuse some users. > > In summary, now that you're a core desktop application and there are > no other core applications with a similar function, your menu entry > should not include the word "Cheese". It should be something like > "Webcam Snapshot" (I'm sure we can do better than that, I haven't > really woken up yet!), and the tooltip something like "Take photos and > videos directly from an attached camera". You can use the name > "Cheese" in the application itself, and in the documentation if that's > what the current docs guidelines allow, but preferably no more than > necessary. i can do that without a problem, BUT i would like to have that "standarized" over the GNOME desktop. i thought about the 3 things we use at the moment and i came up with this: [application name] (e.g. cheese) + strong identity for the application - confusing for people [application name] [short description] (e.g. f-spot photo manager) + enhances the projects identity + gives an idea what the application is about - the application name is confusing for people - looses its romance (unreal tournament vs. unreal tournament first person shooter game) [short description] (e.g. text editor) + gives an idea what the application is about - probably not easy to find? - the project could loose its identity and finding the project page or bugs page could be more difficult for users - if several applications, which do the same are installed, this creates confusion, e.g. firefox and epiphany now the HIG suggests to use [application name] [short description] or [short description] if this is possible. could we agree to just use one of those three mentioned or at least do the same? daniel > > Cheeri, > Calum. > -- this mail was sent using 100% recycled electrons ================================================ daniel g. siegel <dgsiegel gmail com> http://home.cs.tum.edu/~siegel gnupg key id: 0x6EEC9E62 fingerprint: DE5B 1F64 9034 1FB6 E120 DE10 268D AFD5 6EEC 9E62 encrypted email preferred
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