Re: some sheets.in.h inconsistencies

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2003, Alan Horkan wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 28 Apr 2003, Lars Clausen wrote:
> 
>> > created. But those names are very inconsistent. For example:
>> >
>> > "Left arrow"
>> > "A microphone"
>> > "Create a flow"
>> >
>> > instead of "Left arrow", "Microphone", "Flow".
> 
>> > All these strings are located in the *.sheet.in.h files. Would it be a
>> > good idea to remove the "Create ", "Create an ", and "An " from the
>> > strings in these files?
>> >
>> > I could manage to do this myself, and send a patch to this list. (if i
>> > find the time of course.) Would that be appreciated?

The answer, in short, is "Yes".  We'd like help cleaning up the shape
descriptions.  Long answer below.

>> I vaguely remember seeing such a discussion on the list before, but I
>> don't remember what style we ended up agreeing on.  It'd certainly be
>> good to use one style consistently.  Alan, you have any input?
> 
> I'll try and dig up something from the archives (i dont think i filed
> anything in bugzilla).   Either way a consistant policy is desirable.
> 
> Off the top of my head I think the text in the Tooltips is based on what
> is contained in the description tag, and as such should be verbose,
> instructive and descriptive (say ten words or less).

Verbose, but ten words or less?

> The name however should be terse and to the point.  At some point we
> might want to be able to show the buttons with text labels (or as small
> icons or just text or other views, like Visio does only better) which
> would be the right place touse the name tag.

So the description should be more than just the name.  The tooltip could
then be formed by the name on the first line, and the description (if any)
following (unless the text label view is used).

This would imply that using "Left Arrow" or "A Microphone" would be useless
as descriptions.  Only when there's something to *add* to the name (which
could be a longer version of the name with acronyms expanded and such)
should there be a non-empty description.

This should also lessen the translation burden a bit, as we'd avoid all the
slight variations of the name.

This must be documented for future shape designers.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| HĂ„rdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?