[kde-guidelines] Styleguide: Ellipsis

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Friday 10 January 2014 16:45:04 Heiko Tietze wrote:
> On Friday 10 January 2014, 15:34:51 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> > On Thursday 09 January 2014 12:36:08 Heiko Tietze wrote:
> > > * Do not use an ellipsis for selections which result in actions (such as
> > > Save or Print Preview) or do not require user input (such as
> > > configuration
> > > dialogs).
> > 
> > While merging this page with the Labels page, I noticed that there is
> > something I'm not sure if I understand correctly. Do you mean that a menu
> > entry which opens a configuration dialog (such as Configure Shortcuts")
> > should not use an ellipsis? If so, all KDE applications would be violating
> > this guideline, because all menu entries for configuration currently use
> > an
> > ellipsis.
> > If this is not what oyu mean here, then what _do_ you mean? ;)
> 
> Ellipsis should not be used when a decent dialog is opened by the function.
> It is, perhaps, some kind of modal vs modeless discrimination too, with the
> latter not being ellipsized.
> 
> (This page was entirely written by Celeste.)

Ah yes, I remember you said it was the existing one. Still, since it conflicts 
with the current status quo (I assume these menu entries are generated by some 
class in kdelibs), we should change either the status quo or the HIG.

I'm not sure how we should decide here. On the one hand, when you click the 
menu entry, indeed nothing happens other than a dialog opening. On the other 
hand, this is all that the menu entry does: It doesn't perform an action for 
which further input is needed, but instead opening the dialog _is_ its action.

Perhaps Celeste tried to change the status quo via the HIG back when she wrote 
it, but obviously that went nowhere. So if we decide to stick with that rule, 
we'd have to convince the kdelibs devs to change the default behavior.

Could a developer give some input here, please?