[Usability] How to denote default menu entries? (was: Re: [Usability] Nautilus: Should default application appear bold in popup menu?)

[Christian Neumair <chris gnome-de org>]

This seems to be a really interesting topic, especially for the HIG and
the discussion gets pretty off-topic, so I'm starting a new thread.

On Di, 2003-12-23 at 17:40 +0100, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Christian Neumair wrote:
> > - add seperator after default entry
> > - append " (default)" to default entry
( - use bold label)
> > Opinions, suggestions?
> 
> What about a 'diamond' marker next to the default entry like shown here:
> 
> http://www.phys.lsu.edu/~merchan/CGMenus/Beta/index.html
> 
> (_if_ this is possible in GTK 2.3.x, I do hope so)

In my opinion this wouldn't be a good idea since it looks very similar
to a radio button, at least for visually impaired users.
This seems to be a fundamental question: How can we direct a user's
attraction to a _particular_ menu item without either confusing him or
being obtrsive?

GNOME-Terminal (2.5.x) uses a "default entry - separator - rest, n
items" sequence (File->Open Terminal/Tab) to denote this while
Nautilus' (2.5.x) popup document creation submenu contains a separator,
too, but swaps the items, using the pattern "rest, n items - separator -
default entry", where default is more of a fallback than of a "click
here!" item. This shows that there are even different "default"
variants.

We have to decide whether we should emphasize the semantical aspect of a
default entry ("if you don't know what to do, click this and you are on
the safe side") by the means of
 - text layout (e.g. right-alignment)
 - optical additions (e.g. additional "=>" icon, bold label)
 - wording (e.g. "... (default)")
 - context (e.g. separator)

> Appending " (default)" sounds like a bad idea, as it wastes space and is
> bound to raise l10n issues.
I agree with you that it takes additional space but "rais(ing) l10n
issues" is exaggerative. We used to have non-coding translators and non-
translating coders, so this was a huge issue because nobody knew the
others' problems. Now, that we have mutual efforts, this barrier has
finally fallen.
Code snippet:
 /* translators: bla */
 gchar *weirdvar = g_strdup_printf (_("%s (default)"), default_app);
 /* that's it. Easy, right? */

regs,
 Chris