GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 92215
Rephrase "New window" vs. "New Tab" vs. "New terminal"
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
Package: gnome-terminal Severity: normal Version: GNOME2.0.1 2.0.1 Synopsis: UI: Bad wording in right-click menu Bugzilla-Product: gnome-terminal Bugzilla-Component: general Description: Description of Problem: I found this usability problem. When right-clicking in the gnome terminal window (or choosing 'File') it gives you the possibility to chose a 'New window' - but I get a new *terminal*! [1] Right-clicking a Nautilus-drawn desktop it (rightfully) offers you a menu choice of 'New Terminal', but also 'New Window'. SOLUTION: My suggestion to a solution would be to change the wording in the terminal right-click menu to 'New Terminal' since that is what the user wants/expects and since it would make sense with respect to Nautilus. [1] One might ask if the Nautilus right-click menu should not also have another wording than 'New Window' for a new Nautilus window... maybe, but I can not find anything better. WHAT IS GAINED? As I see it two things 1) Consistency across applications, since the 'New Terminal' menu entry always gives you the same. 2) Removes the problem that the 'New Window' menu entry at present is at the top of both the terminal and Nautilus menus making it harder for a user to distinguish the two menus without becoming aware of other menu entries that seperate the two menus. ------- Bug moved to this database by unknown@bugzilla.gnome.org 2002-08-31 21:42 ------- Reassigning to the default owner of the component, hp@redhat.com.
Unfortunately, we don't have "window" or "terminal" defined in the current word list. CC'ing Pat Costello so he can help us think about word choice here.
OK, this is an issue. Before anyone goes and makes a change to the men wording, can you give us some time to think about this quesion. The difference between "Window" and "Terminal" is quite subtle in the case of the Terminal application. We will develop a recommendation.
The terms "terminal" and "window" are now defined in the recently-issued GNOME Documentation Style Guide V0.3. The definitions support the contention of the first posting in this thread, that the menu item "New Window" would be better changed to "New Terminal" in the Terminal application. The term "tab" is also defined in the GDSG. If we accept that "New Terminal" is correct, then "New Tab" is also correct, and there is no need to change that menu item. In the case of Nautilus, to be strictly accurate, the menu item "New Window" should read "New Nautilus Window". However, the whole point of Nautilus is to provide a method of viewing file structures, so the window concept is uppermost. Therefore, we don't need to spell out Nautilus Window. In other words, the menu item "New Window" is fine for Nautilus.
So the gnome-terminal change is: New Window becomes New Terminal New Tab is unchanged Right? I'll do that.
Yes Havoc, that's right. I will update the Terminal Help manual in anticipation of you doing the UI change.
Before I update the Terminal Help manual, I have two small questions: 1. As we are changing "New Window" to be "New Terminal", do we also need to change the menu item "Close Window" to be "Close Terminal"? 2. What will be the application version number of Terminal after the latest modifications?
Version will be current version in configure.in with the last (least significant) number incremented. Opinions on "Close Window"?
I think 'Close Window' would be correct, since it that is what it does: closes the window (with all terminals in it). If it read 'Close Terminal' then the user would expect only the active terminal tab to be closed - or at least be confused. 'Close Window' informs the user more precisely of what would happen.
ligaard: same argument applies to "New Terminal" though doesn't it? And of course the "Terminal" menu applies to the tab, not the window.
Yes it does, but the 'New Window' problem stems from the cross-application; for the terminal seen in isolation 'New Window' was fine. I will shortly justify my previous conclusion before altering my suggestion :-) I do not have the menubar in teminal-windows and since that is the only place where 'Close Window' is now, the user would not have any problems knowing what would happen; I mean: The user chose to click on that little 'File' area, them moved the mouse further down to 'Close Window'. So, for people using the menubar in their terminals, there would be no problem. Users with the menubar switched off will not have access to 'Close Window' at all - they use the cross on the window border; it would be a resonable assumption that they know what will happen. In a way, what I am arguing is that the 'Close Window' text in the menu is actually quite clear to users which get there. My initial suggestion (which I did not dismissed right a way, so you have never seen it :-), was to suggest 'Close All Terminals', but that would be misleading the user and break coherence with Nautilus, since Nautilus uses 'Close All Windows' in another sense. Maybe a solution would be 'Close Terminal(s)', since there might be several terminals as tabs in the window. Still, this could be interpreted as closing all windows containing terminals. Maybe 'Close These Terminal(s)' or 'Close Terminal Tabs'? Btw.: How wide do we accept a menu to be? (and when translated to something like finnish how wide would not that become!). Well I do not have the definitive answer. Hope this might inspire, though.
I haven't cross-checked with the doc styleguide, but if the Nautilus menu item "should really be New Nautilus Window" as Pat says, why shouldn't the terminal menu item be "New Terminal Window" rather than "New Terminal" which, as somebody pointed out above, could mean either a new tab or a new window? As for the width of menus: the HIG has no specific guidelines other than that menu items should be as succinct as possible. In English, I'd consider one or two words to be normal for a menu item, three words to be verbose but acceptable in some situations, and four or more to be too many :)
Ah, now come on Calum. I used the phrase "should really be New Nautilus Window" as a stepping stone on the why to concluding that "New Window" was fine to use in the Nautilus situation. We have the following current definitions in the GDSG: tab: The part of a tabbed section that you click on to view the tabbed section. terminal: A window with a command line. window: A rectangular frame on your screen that displays a particular application. So, in the Terminal application the following menu items would work within the context of the GDSG definitions: "New Tab", "New Terminal": these terms are not synonymous. "Close Terminal", "Close Tab", "Close All Tabs", "Close All Terminals". "New Terminal" cannot mean a new terminal or a new tab. "New Terminal" can only mean "a new window showing the Terminal application with a command line", within the framework of our definitions. And for the Nautilus application "New Window" is also fine.
My patch in bug 76800 does this s/New Window/New Terminal/ change, as well as a few others.
This is in HEAD as of a week ago. Closing.