unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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mac_v wrote on 10/12/09 16:10:
>...
> HIG specifically says *not* to use ellipses for certain options:
>  "Label the menu item with a trailing ellipsis ("...") only if the
> command requires further input from the user before it can be performed.
> Do not add an ellipsis to items that only present a confirmation dialog
> (such as Delete) " >
> http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/menus-design.html.en#menu-item-type-command
> 
> But we disregard the guideline because few members of the UX team
> didnt agree with that rule.
>...

In my defence, that sentence in the HIG is obvious nonsense. :-P The
rest of the sentence is "...or that do not *require* further input (such
as Properties, Preferences or About)." By that standard, hardly any menu
item at all should have an ellipsis: for example, you might open the
Print dialog just to see how many pages the document is, and that
doesn't require further input, therefore "File" > "Print" should not
have an ellipsis -- but of course it should. (And yes, I have reported a
bug about this.)

>...
> OTOH , The session menu lists too many options , of which a user would
> use only a couple and probably never ever use the rest of the options.
>...

That's true. I have a long-term design to fix that too.
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ExitStrategy>

I've also been told that the Linux kernel will be dropping support for
hibernation soon, which would reduce the number of items by one.

- --
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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