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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: RFC: StyleGuide for Labels? (fwd)
From:       Magnus Ihse <d95-mih () nada ! kth ! se>
Date:       2000-07-03 16:08:13
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On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, Peter Putzer wrote:

> *g* it should be: "This Is a Label for a Lineedit"

Exactly. If we adopt the scheme you're pushing for, we'd see a lot
more apps that break the style guide, and a lot of variants, such
as "This Is A Label For A Line Edit" or "This is A Label For a Line
edit" etc.

> Such things can be looked up.

Yes, but why put that extra burden on the programmer/UI
designer/translator?

If you can have a style guide that says: "Labels are written like
sentences. First letter is uppercase, the rest is lowercase", why opt
for something like "according to the chicago style manual, all verbs,
nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc etc ..."

> Not to blow my own horn, but I think my command of the English is
> quite good,

Good for you. :) I've found that it is more common for foregneirs
(yeah, I'm swedish myself :)) to know the rules of capitalization on
titles than for native english speaking people. :-) Just look at the
track listing on any ordinary CD...

> > The other two arguments for the first style that I can think of is:
> >  * it is easier to read
> 
> Mhm... is it? I'm not too sure about that, but that MAY be a point.

Yeah, but you Germans are used to the Use of Capitalization on all
Nouns, so you doesn't count. ;-)

But seriously, as a rule of thumb, lower case is easier to read than
upper case.

> >  * it is the most commonly used style, both in KDE and in The Other
> > GUI<tm>.
> 
> Sorry, this argument doesn't hold any water with me. We should have a good
> solution, not necessarily one that is (erroneously) widely used.

This is of course a detail that is almost silly to debate :-), but in
general I'd say that the decision is not so easy: usability does not
exist in a vacuum, rather what makes something easy to use is the
right balance between "inherent" good usability, and conformance to
legacy "standards". I'd willingly agree that in this case, the
question of previous use is not so important, as this is actually
more a question of aesthetics than usability (the difference in
reading speed is neglectable) and what's a reasonable style guide for
programmers to be able to live up to.

/Magnus

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