Re: Word-a-Day: capplet, preference tool

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Fri, 2008-04-18 at 13:11 +0100, Calum Benson wrote:
> On 17 Apr 2008, at 21:34, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> 
> > On Apr 11, 2008, at 8:41 PM, Shaun McCance wrote:
> >>
> >> Revised proposal
> >> ...
> >> ======================================================
> >> preferences window
> >> A small application that allows users to change their
> >> personal preference settings.
> >> ...
> >> ======================================================
> >> settings window
> >> A small application that allows users to change
> >> system-wide settings.
> >
> > I think this distinction will not last long. I expect future combined
> > windows to let you change both personal and (if you authenticate as an
> > administrator) system-wide settings.
> 
> Also, it has to be said we've always deliberately avoided using more  
> than one word for "preferences", i.e. in UI reviews we've always asked  
> for anything called 'settings' or 'options' to be changed to  
> 'preferences' where at all possible.

I certainly think there's value in only using one word
where user preferences are concerned.  I don't think any
applications should be using 'settings' or 'options' for
user preferences in the application.  But is there value
in distinguishing between settings for user preferences
and those that affect the entire system?

Looking at current system settings windows, I see:

 * Authentication Configuration
 * Date/Time Properties (is the word "and" so hard?)
 * Display settings (title caps, people)
 * Keyboard
 * Language Selection
 * Network Configuration
 * Printer configuration (again, title caps)
 * Security Level Configuration
 * Service Configuration
 * Audio configuration (do people hate title caps?)
 * User Manager

It would actually seem that "configuration" is the most
common term.

I'm wondering how many of these will be reworked into
normal preferences windows with privilege escalation
in the near future.  For some of them, their contents
clearly fit within an existing preferences window, so
I'm sure we'd just add the necessary bits there.

Others, however, stand on their own.  And then there
are graphical configuration windows for various system
services, like web servers.  Is there a term for those?
I did just call them configuration windows while asking
what to call them.  Not sure if that means anything.

--
Shaun