60927 - should use capitalised 'This' in context and main menus (not 'this')

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect, P4)

Description

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

summary sez it all. i know, it's niggling, but all other context menu items have
the word 'this' beginning with a lowercase 't' --ie, as seen in 'Bookmark this
Page' and 'Bookmark this Link'. just want to be consistent. :) i've found a
couple of places [so far] where this [pardon the pun ;)] occurs in menus:

* context menu [when viewing frames, eg, http://www.faqs.org/]: 'Show Only This
Frame'
* Search main menu: 'Find in This Page'

Comment 1

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

should be easy to fix, methinks...

also, i've seen inconsistencies in the mail [3-pane window] menus --eg, File >
Compact This Folder, Search > Find in This Message --not sure if i should i file
a seperate bug in mailnews... Ninoschka, does a bug[s] already exist for the
case in mail? thx!

Comment 2

[Jesse Ruderman]

making this bug block bug 23569.

Comment 3

[Ninoschka Baca]

I don't think there is a specific bug for Mail. I'll make sure there is a
reported bug, thanks.

Comment 4

[Blake Ross]

timeless, wanna take this one?

Comment 5

[timeless]

see [e-mail] 2000-12-08 13:07 in bug 23569

until verah withdraws her demand that This be capitalized I won't commit a fix 
for this.  However I personally would like to fix it. So i'll try to have a 
patch shortly for consideration.

Comment 6

[verah (gone)]

Removing myself from the list of cc's. Have fun, y'all; this is no longer my
concern.

Comment 7

[Håkan Waara]

Reassigning to self per timeless.

Comment 8

[Håkan Waara]

So.. am I free to set all "This" to lowercase as mentioned, or does anyone have
anything against this?

Comment 9

[rudman]

Since we capitalize words in the menus, we might as well abide by some common
style for caps. As Vera noted in bug 23569, "This" is an adjective in the
context being used. Typical style for capitalizing in titles, e.g., would be to
cap "This" (per Chicago Manual of Style and other standard style guides).

I don't see a compelling reason to lowercase "this" in the menu. It may have
been that way in 4.x, but 4.x style isn't the most refined and isn't a standard
for Mozilla or NS 6.

As far as the readibility argument---that's a subjective call, and I don't see
that lowercasing the word makes the menu item any more readable. In fact, I
think that the readability of "Bookmark this Page" is lessened by the lowercase,
especially with all of the caps surrounding "this" on each side and in the
commands above and below. Incidentally, one could replace "This" with "Current"
to see how the word [this] acts as an adjective---and I don't think anyone would
suggest lowercasing "Current." [And I am not suggesting actually replacing
"this" with "Current" at this point.]

Unless there is some non-subjective reason for using lowercase, we should cap
"This" wherever it appears in the menus. The summary of this bug should be
altered, or this bug should be marked invalid and a new bug should be opened for
fixing the inconsistent and atypical use of "this" in the menus.

Comment 10

[rudman]

Adding self to cc list.

Comment 11

[timeless]

Create Shortcut(s) Here
Open with Winzip
Scan for Viruses
Search for Computers
Open With...
Sort by Name

please score these menu items according to chicago style.  And then please 
score the menus of your favorite word processor.  If you have time, score their 
dialogs.  Please attach any interesting strings and scores here.

I don't like styles, and i don't like standards.  However if they agree w/ my 
internal scoring mechanism I will accept them.

Comment 12

[Håkan Waara]

Should I go ahead and replcace all "this" -> "This", anyone?

Comment 13

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Or vice versa.

`Add this Page' could equally be replaced by `Add the Page', and we wouldn't 
capitalize the `the'. The word `this' isn't important to the meaning of the menu 
item, so I think it should be lower-case.

Comment 14

[Håkan Waara]

This is an endless discussion, we need to make a decision. Adding german to comment.

Comment 15

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

hakan: while i'd prefer the lowercase 'this', i'd say you might as well submit
the patch for the uppercase 'This' [per rudman's discussion above, 'This'
apparently appears to be part of the style for NS 6]. that is, before this bug
gets stale (yet again. ;)  *sigh*

Comment 16

[Håkan Waara]

I don't have enough time to promise I'll fix this, thus I'm reassigning to the
default owner of this component. Who knows, maybe I'll get around and fix it
after all - but I can't promise it. Sorry :(

Comment 17

[Hixie (not reading bugmail)]

Correcting summary to more accurately reflect the discussion...

Comment 18

[Blake Ross]

stephen, mind doing this?

Comment 19

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Attachment: Patch, I might have left some out (grepping for "this" isn't very easy ;-))

Comment 20

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Attachment: Patch, removes the bogus DTD entity (that was added in cookie overlay code alread)

Comment 21

[timeless]

r=timeless for attachment 32364 [details] [diff] [review]

Comment 22

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Attachment: New Patch, doesn't add the bookmark change (not ready yet)

Comment 23

[timeless]

warning: we are again diverging in this and This stuff.  And yuck, it looks 
like i've r='d validity both ways.

Comment 24

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

Count me in for non-capitalized 'this's.

Comment 25

[jglick]

I asked Ian from tech pubs about "This vs this" sometime ago. I believe he said 
it should be capitalized (because its an adverb??).  Cc'ing Ian.

Comment 26

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

I love logomachies! As rudman mentions in the comment from 2000-01-04, "this" is
an adjective in this context--though it can also be an adverb, as in "I love
Jell-o brand gelatin _this_ much!" Since it's not an article or any other
special thing that doesn't get capitalized in titles, it should be capitalized
here. 

And Steve Rudman and I are prepared to defend this grammatical ground in a
WWF-style smackdown, right Steve?

Comment 27

[Blake Ross]

I don't have the technical expertise to argue anything here, but I'm with Simon 
in voting for no capitalization.  Capitalizing it just makes it harder for me 
to get the information I really want (typically I automatically skip over 
lowercase words because they add little meaning to items).

Comment 28

[rudman]

Let's not beat This dead horse. Standard English capitalization style calls for
a cap "T". Arguments based on personal preference will leave us mired in the
muck (the very muck in which Ian and I may have to wrestle you "this-ers").

Comment 29

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

r/sr, anyone?

Comment 30

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

adding alecf for a possible super review. 

Comment 31

[Alec Flett]

sr=alecf
Stuff like this astounds me. don't we have better things to do with our time?

Comment 32

[Ian Oeschger (gone)]

On the contrary. Thank goodness some people (like writers and UE folks) are
responsible for hashing out issues like these. As "niggling" as these
discussions can get, UI or documentation with inconsistencies or errors can be
really off-putting.

Comment 33

[timeless]

well then someone should proabably go attack editor forgoing against the flow.

Personally i prefer 'this'. And would prefer not using the word _this_ in order 
to avoid This.

Comment 34

[Charles Manske]

I agree, it should be "this". In fact, I recently checked in a fix (bug  78227)
to change to "Find in this Page", "Find in this Frame"!

Comment 35

[[e-mail] (gone - use [e-mail] instead)]

Time for me to get back to mail/news ;-)

Comment 36

[Alec Flett]

the patch is there, has been super-reviewed, can't we just check in what we
have? I wasn't objecting to the bug itself, just that we were spending so much
time on it.

Comment 37

[Charles Manske]

No, I think it should be "wontfix"

Comment 38

[Henrik Lynggaard Hansen]

I have just tested this bug on mozilla 1.4b
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030412

and I have not found any places where this is not "This" I have checked the
places mentioned in this bug and they all use "This" or have been rephrased in
the meantime.

Can we close this bug as fixed ??

and btw. It this is blocking bug 23569 which is allready fixed

Comment 39

[Daniel Wang]

yeah, this bug has been fixed long ago