Re: Proposal to revamp bookmarks++

[Peter Harvey <pah06 uow edu au>]

On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 21:37 +0100, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Nov 2005, Kristoffer Lundén wrote:
> 
> > Links might be appropriate as another name for what you want to call
> > Bookmarks though. I think of them as Shortcuts, which could be another
> > suggestion.
> 
> The Page Info extension already uses 'Links' to describe which 
> hyperlinks are in the current page. I fear it would cause more 
> confusion than clarity to introduce this term.

I might as well put up a list of possible words we can use so far. I'm
going to assume that the word "Bookmark" is retained for static links to
webpages, and ignore the screaming. We *can* change to Favourites later,
or something wholly original, but as Reinout pointed out we better have
a good reason.

So what we're looking for is a menu title that covers Bookmarks,
Searches, History, Feeds, etc. The idea is to try and find a single term
that can unify them all in the users mind so that we can integrate them
correctly.

--

"Bookmarks"
Old, known by users, but doesn't really cover history and so has trouble
being used as a title for an integrated menu. Also if a Bookmark is to
be seen as static then it doesn't cover what a Search is or potentially
what a Feed is.

"Places"
New to Gnome. and covers pretty much everything. Has the issue that it
might cover too much, and has 0% mindshare in the web community. I don't
bookmark a "Place", I bookmark a "Page".

"Pages"
Similar to Places though 0% mindshare in the desktop community at the
moment. Would restrict us to only keeping pages or similar, which isn't
all that bad. Has the added bonus of the "Pages" being semantically
similar to "Files", so the user would expect the usual "File"-menu
functions (save for later use, most-recently-used aka history, etc).

"Links"
A little more abstract than "Pages". Makes the link object itself the
focus of the menu, rather than the *linked* object. Is a word known in
the web community, but perhaps not as well known as "Pages".

"Shortcuts"
Doesn't really seem to cover History, but I might be wrong. Just doesn't
feel sufficiently abstract to me. To go to the "Shortcut" menu to find
"Add Bookmark" feels like I've gone from a less abstract concept to a
more abstract concept. That could just be me though.

"Favourites"
We all know this one. Arguments for: it often describes what these
things are (ie. your favourite pages/sites/whatever), and has large
mindshare amongst IE users. Arguments against: it's not always true, and
History doesn't fit neatly into it.

--

My order of preference?
  Pages, Places, Links, Shortcuts, Bookmarks, Favourites.

By the way, if you have an objection to the *other* parts of the
original proposal, feel free to speak up. This has all become about
naming so far, which was a pretty small part. :)

Regards,
Peter Harvey.