[kde-guidelines] Styleguide: Context menu

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Monday 23 September 2013 12:48:00 Heiko Tietze wrote:
> Am Sonntag, 22. September 2013, 15:13:25 schrieb Thomas Pfeiffer:
> > > > What do you mean by "implicit function"?
> > > 
> > > I was afraid of this question. For instance, Copy and Paste are
> > > functions
> > > that all controls with editing feature provide by default and
> > > implicitely.
> > > I have no idea for a better wording.
> > 
> > I have to admit I still don't really get it... I get the "by default" but
> > not the "implicitly" part
> > Could you give a few more examples, so that maybe we'll understand it and
> > can brainstorm a wording which the HIG users understand as well?
> 
> If you right click this mail, what do you expect? Probably Reply, Print,
> Delete etc. - those are implicit functions, directly related to the
> context/application.
> Text will always contain 'Copy', 'Paste', 'Cut', file managers 'Move',
> 'Delete', 'Rename', browsers 'Forward', 'Backward', 'Open Link', image
> processing tools 'Rotate left/right', 'Wallpaperize' and so on.
> Implicit or core functions needs to be available via context menu (but not
> solely). But the term core means to me 'Send' for emails, 'Save' for text
> processing, 'Home' for browsers.

Okay, now I got what you mean. Maybe it's just me, but to me "implicit" is 
always strongly associated with the "not openly shown" part of the definition 
"Contained in the essential nature of something but not openly shown" [1]. 
It's not wrong in this context,  but at least I didn't get it ;) Maybe we 
should use "inherent" instead? That would fit as well, and doesn't have the 
connotation of "hidden".
A few of the examples you gave here should be included as well, because they 
made it more clear to me than probably any word we could come up with ;)

> > > > > * Hide menu items that not apply at all.
> > 
> > Ah, now I get it. Maybe we should write "Hide menu items completely if
> > they
> > are permanently unavailable on the user's system (e.g. due to missing
> > hardware capabilities or missing optional dependencies)." instead, then?
> 
> Verbose but clear :-)

I think it's okay to sometimes be a little verbose in HIG for the sake of 
clarity ;)


[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/implicit