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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: RFC: StyleGuide for Labels? (fwd)
From:       Peter Putzer <pputzer () edu ! uni-klu ! ac ! at>
Date:       2000-07-03 18:39:47
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On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, Magnus Ihse wrote:

> 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.

Well, but you can still say: the styleguide says this... :-)

> > Such things can be looked up.
> 
> Yes, but why put that extra burden on the programmer/UI
> designer/translator?

But we have to continously review our UI strings anyway, how many of us
ARE native speakers? 

> 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 ..."

Mhm, you could list those words taxatively, there aren't that many...

> > 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...

Yep, I hate that *grins*

But as I said in another mail, what we have now is what I envisioned, a
real discussion. I want the matter to be settled, one way or another, and
to do that we needed to discuss. Anyway, I still think Style A is better,
aesthetically speaking.

> > > 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.

No it's not, studies (sorry, no quotes, but if you give me time I'm sure I
can dig something up) have shown that mixed upper/lower case (as used in
German for example) simplifies reading because the somehow "attaches" to
the forms and recognizes them as chunks instead of individual
letters. Apparently the process of identifying a form (word) is easier
when there are more shapes (mixed upper/lower 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.

Agreed.

bye,
Peter

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