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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Desktop Icon 'Home' -> 'Personal Files (Home)'
From:       Stian =?iso-8859-1?Q?S=F8iland?= <stian () soiland ! no>
Date:       2003-08-21 4:05:54
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On 2003-08-20 11:56:19, David Hugh-Jones wrote:

> I think "home" is so widely used in other unix documentation (and among
> the community) that we have to keep it. It's also quite a nice metaphor
> that people can grasp fairly easily - and gives them a nice sense of
> ownership on a shared system.
> 
> "home directory" is more explicit. The problem is that the KDE standard
> (if I have understood it) says use "folder" except for when you are
> talking about the inner workings of the filesystem. So it really ought
> to be "home folder". Which actually sounds pretty straightforward.

Agreed, when including 'folder' it should be understandable that this is
somewhere to keep files. 

However I still don't like the 'schwung' of the wording "home folder".
Any views? Search on google shows 45k hits on 'home folder', while 'home
directory' has 8M3, so maybe the lack of schwung is because the phrase
has been used so little.

I don't understand this, 'directory' is more ambigious than a 'folder' -
a directory only lists items, it doesn't contain them. A folder  eh..
..folds around stuff. =) 

Some more stats:

In Norwegian, 'hjemmekatalog' is the phrase most used, 'katalog' is
'directory' in no_NO. Same pattern. In our previously talked-about
support department, a search for "katalog" (directory) yields 289 cases,
while "mappe" (folder) only gives 43 results. 

(However, the english term 'folder' is 20 cases agains 'directory' with
12 cases =)  'Folder' is used as a Norwegian-ish term by users
influenced by English programs)

Note that this includes loads of Windows users, and Windows has prefered
'folder' over 'directory' for many years. 

-- 
Stian Søiland               Work toward win-win situation. Win-lose
Trondheim, Norway           is where you win and the other lose.
http://www.soiland.no/      Lose-lose and lose-win are left as an
                            exercise to the reader.  [Limoncelli/Hogan]
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