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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: A question on terminology (fwd)
From:       Andreas Pour <pour () mieterra ! com>
Date:       1999-06-23 21:27:19
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Cristian Tibirna wrote:

[ ... ]

> Hi Cristian,
>
> I'm interested in the history of the use of the word "Iconify" as
> opposed to "Minimize" in the KDE applications. I have three difficulties
> with this word.
>
> First, it's not a word in the English language (at least not in my
> dictionary).

Who cares?  "Minimize" in my dictionary says nothing about making a computer
window go into a task bar, either.

> Second, it's not the natural opposite of Maximize

But it is the natural opposite of Deiconify.

> and third, it's different from Windows.

This is a positive!

> Can you tell me if there was much discussion on the use of this word?
>
> Thanks
>
> Erich
> ---------------------
>
> In my private correspondence with a few KDE fellows, everybody agreed that
> "Iconify" should be returned back to X's antiquity and we start use
> "Minimize" instead.
>
> I had an anti-argument where I pointed out to "minimize" also meaning
> "denigrate" but I believe it was a quite childish argument.
>
> What do you think?

"Iconify" IIRC comes from the fvwm-style window managers that actually turn
the window into an icon when it is hidden.  Since KDE does not do this, I
think "iconify" is not good terminology.  On the other hand, "minimize" is not
the correct word either; to me, "minimize"/"maximize" signify the square
toggle button in the titlebar that makes the window take up the full screen or
only part of the screen.  Personally I think for purposes of clicking the "."
button in the titlebar (which makes the window disappear into the task bar)
the words "hide" and "show" should be used (corresponding to the widget
commands to accomplish this :-)  ).

So, you would have "minimize"/"maximize" for adjusting the size of the window
to part screen/full screen, and "hide"/"show" for hiding the window (and
showing it in the task bar) or redrawing it.

Regards,

Andreas

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