255051 - Fix misuse of ellipsis throughout Fx

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

A number of patches already address this in places.  once these land, do a quick
audit and remove where its bogus.

Comment 1

[Simon Bünzli]

Should this bug not be exclusively about Linux:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwue/html/ch14d.asp

There should be no ellipses for
* File -> Page Setup
* View -> Toolbars -> Customize
* Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks
* Tools -> Options
* Manage Search Engines

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Why should there not be an ellipsis for File -> Page Setup? It opens a dialog...

I would really like to switch to using a real ellipsis character instead of three consecutive dots... the typography of a real ellipsis is subtly different in terms of kerning.

Comment 3

[Simon Bünzli]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Why should there not be an ellipsis for File -> Page Setup? It opens a
> dialog...

Because the ellipsis doesn't indicate a dialog being opened but further input being required in order to complete the original action (see e.g. the "Ellipses" section at the link from comment #1) and there's no need for further input before the user can set the page up.

Comment 4

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

And to be as difficult as possible, for Mac there should be an ellipsis for things like page setup and toolbar customization, and even for things that will always put up a confirmation alert: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGText/chapter_13_section_3.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000365-TPXREF126

(Which also threatens you with being inaccessible if you don't use a genuine ellipsis.)

Comment 5

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

And, the third oar:
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/menus-design.html#menu-item-type-command

Which fortunately agrees with Windows about "only if it *requires* further
input, not if you might just want to look at what you have set up for paper
size, and not for confirmation alerts."

Comment 6

[Christian Schmidt]

(In reply to comment #4)
> And to be as difficult as possible, for Mac there should be an ellipsis for
> things like page setup and toolbar customization, and even for things that 
> will always put up a confirmation alert:
This could possibly be solved by using a special entity, e.g. &hellip.confirm; that is defined as "…" on Mac and as "" on Windows.

Comment 7

[Victor Bielawski]

As of 20080107 Firefox trunk nightly, here is a list, probably incomplete as I
don't have access to a Mac (and only correct on windows and gnome):
Main window:File menu
   Page Setup... sounds fishy. I'm not sure if this needs an ellipsis or not.
Main window:View menu
   Toolbars > Customize... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Character Encoding > Customize List... shouldn't have an ellipsis
Main window:History menu
   Show All History... shouldn't have an ellipsis
Main window:Bookmarks
   Show All Bookmarks... shouldn't have an ellipsis
Main window:Tools menu
   Options... shouldn't have an ellipsis (Windows only)
Main window:Help menu
   Check for Updates... shouldn't have an ellipsis
Places Organizer window:Import and Backup menu
   Backup... should be written Back Up...
   Restore...> shouldn't have an ellipsis (it's a submenu for god's sake!)
Prefs window:Content pane
   Exceptions... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Exceptions... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Advanced... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Advanced... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Colors... shouldn't have an ellipsis
Prefs window:Privacy pane
   Exceptions... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Show Cookies... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Settings... shouldn't have an ellipsis
Prefs window:Security
   Exceptions... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Exceptions... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Show Passwords... shouldn't have an ellipsis
   Settings... shouldn't have an ellipsis
Prefs window:Advanced pane, Network tab
   Settings... shouldn't have an ellipsis

Comment 8

[Johnathan Nightingale [:johnath]]

Since this is the kind of thing that will have a tendency to re-offend, can we have a test, once it's finished?  Something like:

grep -Rq '\.\.\.' *

... from browser/locales/en-US/ maybe? (Return code is 0 if there's a match, non-zero if there isn't)  When I tripped up a while ago, reed caught me, but (all present evidence to the contrary) "reed caught me" doesn't scale.

Currently on trunk that test finds 8 occurrences, all in comments.

Comment 9

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Johnathan, this bug isn't about three dots vs. the unicode character (bug 373623) but the ellipsis being used where it shouldn't be used.

While we're at it, I think the downdload manager search field's emptytext shouldn't have an ellipsis.

Comment 11

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

>View -> Toolbars -> Customize

Actually, this one should still have an ellipsis, since the action (customizing) doesn't really happen until the user makes a change in the next dialog.  Also without an ellipsis, it sounds like the action will be taken immediately.  A better example of this in applications is "Filter" versus "Filter..."

Comment 12

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

(based on the OS X guidelines, which are better because they add that extra exception).  I think we should actually be using that specific guideline on Windows as well.