Re: Templates and all user intraction strings consistency
Am Freitag, 17. Oktober 2003 19.30 schrieb Joey Hess:
> > -Boolean templates
> > -the short form is a question which should be kept short. This
> > sometimes needs to make telegraphic-style phrases as french
> > usually uses more room than english
> >
> > -the long form should NOT include a question
>
> Agreed. Note that this will look wrong under current cdebconf's newt
> frontend, but the frontend can be fixed. (#215582)
>
> So:
>
> Description: Format c:?
Should be more clearly a question to the user:
Description: Do you want to format c:?
> You've picked the c: drive for your linux install. Now it must be
> formatted. This operation will destroy the data on your first hard drive.
>
> Not:
>
> Description: Formatting of drive
> You've picked the c: drive for your linux install. Now it must be
> formatted. This operation will destroy the data on your first hard
> drive. Format c:?
>
> > -String templates (as well as Select/Multi-Select templates)
> > -the short form is a prompt and NOT a title. I follow Joey's wishes
> > about this and the planned/suggested modifications to cdebconf for
> > having it behave like debconf.
> > I prohibit question style prompts ("IP Address?") in favour of
> > "opened" prompts ("Adresse IP").
>
> That's interesting, it may not apply in English. I think if just
> prompting for a value, it does make sense to use the name of the value
> as the prompt. Sticking a question mark at the end does not make it a
> question. But "What is your IP address?" could also be appropriate.
I like the "What is your X?" version for String templates more. "Please give
your X:" could make sense too.
Select and Multi-Select templates should maybe use "Please choose one:" and
"Please select:" in the short form and information helping in making the
decission in the long form.
> > I do NOT use colons at the end (but maybe should I??)
>
> I'm not sure about colons. They are unnecessary in the newt frontend,
> but may be necessary to separate the prompt from the text entry space on
> other frontends.
Questions (String) need question marks, Select and Multi-Select labels
introduce tables and should therefore have colons, and notes have titles
which should have no period. period:-)
> I have some other stylistic points for the installer. I think it's a bad
> idea for a template in one part to refer to some action to be carried
> out later in some other part. For example, if dhcp fails, the dialog
> currently says something about 'at the main menu, select "detect
> hardware and load installer modules"'. This is annoying, both because
> that menu items has changed its name since this text was written, and
> because you're asking the user to remember what to do. Instead it could
> just do the action for the user.
Good point!
> I think we need to agree on such stupid stylistic matters as one space
> or two at the end of a sentence. I have my preferences, but making it
> consistent is more important.
+1 for one!
> We should agree on a voice for the installer to use. Some questions use
> "I will do this", some use "Do you want to do this". I prefer to not
> anthromorphise computer programs, and avoid the "I".
Computers shouldn't use the term "I" (yet). If the computer wants to tell us
what he does, he should use a term like "Downloading something" instead of
"I'm downloading something". If he wants us to make a decission, he should
ask us what we want to do. So we should use "Do you want to do this?".
> We need to decide on a term to use for the installer itself in text
> displayed inside it. Should we call it "the Debian installer" and
> require big changes by other derived distributions, or should it be "the
> installer"? Or "the debian-installer"? I prefer the second of these.
I prefer "Debian Installer".
> We should decide on a term to use for udebs in the installer. Reports
> are that "installer modules" is confusing to users; it also leads to
> clunky phrases like "install installer modules". Or should that be
> "install Debian installer modules"? You see the problem. There has been
> a proposal to call them something else, I forget what.
>
> Any more?
Error and failure messages should also be unified. Some of them contain an
error number/return code, some talk about aborting. Terms like 'exited with
return code XX' don't help the user.
I would propose that an error/failure should show an info template like:
Description: Can't download ${MODULE}!
Something went wrong while downloading ${MODULE}. This means, that this
package can't be installed and used.
You should check you CD-ROM or Network connection and...
The short description should be exactly that, a short description of the
failure, followed by a exclamation point. The long part should describe the
consequences of the failure and possible work-arounds.
This error template should be shown with a high priority, or whatever
apropriate. After that there could be another template, containing more
information like return values, escpecialy helpfull for debugging. This
template should have a lower priority, so that it is only seen by persons who
have a deeper knowledge about debian.
Just my 2c
Simon
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