Dialog or dialog box?

Are we using the term "dialog" or "dialog box"? The OOo books vary in usage:
Getting Started and Calc (and maybe Draw; I didn't check) use "dialog" while
the Writer Guide uses "dialog box".

The LibreOffice options use the term "dialog" for some of the options. I
haven't checked the help, but I think it also uses "dialog".

If we settle on "dialog", I will amend the Writer Guide chapters as I go
through them doing other things.

FWIW, I personally prefer "dialog" but the important thing is to be
consistent, when we can. I suspect other variations in terminology in both
the program and the user guides, left over from OOo.

Hal

The authors at OOo are in the process of changing their docs from dialog box to dialog. I agree with you and think we should go with dialog. It sound better to me. The online help uses dialog as well. That would be a good list to have of some typical conventions. Maybe we can find a place on the wiki and list them.

Ron

Hi, :slight_smile:

Are we using the term "dialog" or "dialog box"?

When I started proofreading files, I corrected all occurrences of
"dialog(s)" to "dialog box(es)"... we had a brief discussion of that
at the time and there was a *kind of* consensus at that time...

Just my 0.2 cents... :wink:

David Nelson

Another term is "main menu" vs "menu bar" -- both were used in the chapter I'm working on. And then there's "tab" vs "page" for the tabbed dialogs.

It would also be good to have a list of the paragraph and character style usage. Character styles, in particular, were really inconsistent in what I saw. Dialogs, options, and so on really should be consistent in their tagging across the whole document. No time to work on that now, I'm sure, but....

Hi Hal,

Are we using the term "dialog" or "dialog box"? The OOo books vary in usage:
Getting Started and Calc (and maybe Draw; I didn't check) use "dialog" while
the Writer Guide uses "dialog box".

The LibreOffice options use the term "dialog" for some of the options. I
haven't checked the help, but I think it also uses "dialog".

If we settle on "dialog", I will amend the Writer Guide chapters as I go
through them doing other things.

FWIW, I personally prefer "dialog" but the important thing is to be
consistent, when we can. I suspect other variations in terminology in both
the program and the user guides, left over from OOo.

If you want to stay consistent with the help files content, then you should use [dialog] because this is what is used all over there.
May be we should find a way for you to use our translation memory or glossaries so you get the same words for the UI, the Help and your documentation? This is what we try to achieve with our translation tools. Or just let you research for the terms on Pootle would be enough, I don't know?

Kind regards
Sophie

Hi

I prefer "dialogue-box" with a hyphen in the middle like that. Ubuntu
documentation team have decided that "dialogue box" is too technical and are
replacing it with "window" [deep sigh][sulks]. So now their official
documentation wont make any sense to anyone

I'm not sure that being consistent is so important. I think "dialogue" (or the
american "dialog") is only slightly ambiguous & adding "-box" only adds a little
more clarity.

As long as we don't go the Ubuntu way then we should be ok.

Just my thoughts
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Sophie, thank you for the confirmation that the Help uses "dialog". IMO that
is the best reason for the user guides to use that term also.

I think it would be very helpful for the writers to have access to (or a
copy of) the glossaries used for the UI and Help. I don't know what might be
the best way for us to do that. I have never used Pootle or any type of
translation tool. I think for the writers/reviewers/editors, having a list
of terms in the documentation resources would be easier for us to use. I,
for example, often work offline, so I would like to have a word list that I
can store on my own computer.

This is my opinion. David and Ron and the others may have different ideas,
or know more about it than I do.

Hal

Hi, :slight_smile:

This is my opinion. David and Ron and the others may have different ideas,
or know more about it than I do.

Well, the idea was that "dialog" was more international and less
specifically US... But it's not an issue to lose sleep over... let's
just be consistent?

My 0.2 cents...

David Nelson

term, but rather in reference to this paragraph from my previous note:
"I think it would be very helpful for the writers to have access to (or a
copy of) the glossaries used for the UI and Help. I don't know what might be
the best way for us to do that. I have never used Pootle or any type of
translation tool. I think for the writers/reviewers/editors, having a list
of terms in the documentation resources would be easier for us to use. I,
for example, often work offline, so I would like to have a word list that I
can store on my own computer."

So "let's just be consistent" yes. I was talking about the best way to help
us do exactly that.

Hal

Another term is context menu vs pop-up menu for what happens after a right-click. I could start collecting all this stuff for a style guide, if there isn't one already. Any interest?

Hi, :slight_smile:

Another term is context menu vs pop-up menu for what happens after a
right-click. I could start collecting all this stuff for a style guide, if
there isn't one already. Any interest?

I think it would be a great idea for us to compile a terminology guide.

David Nelson

Hi :slight_smile:

As i understand it a "pop-up" is a very generic term and could mean almost
anything that appears. I have even heard a drop-down referred to as a pop-up!

"Context menu" might be a little geeky for people initially but tends to make
sense because of the rest of the sentence it is in, ie "When you right-click
anywhere a context menu pops-up" Taa Dahhh [bows] :slight_smile:

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi, :slight_smile:

The term I have always used in my own work is "context-sensitive menu".

Similarly, I prefer "dialog box" rather than just "dialog"

But Hal mentioned an idea that we could compile a terminology glossary
for the team, so that we all stay on the same track
terminology-wise... Interested in "getting involved", Tom? :wink:

David Nelson

Seriously, shouldn't you get the glossary from Sophie and start with
that? It will probably contain most of the terms that the team needs,
without lengthy debate.
Jean

Seriously, shouldn't you get the glossary from Sophie and start with
that? It will probably contain most of the terms that the team needs,
without lengthy debate.
Jean

I agree. What I was thinking about is a compilation not just of the terms, but also of what paragraph style (fairly obvious as a rule) and especially what character style (sometimes not so obvious) to use for each of the kinds of things we talk about in the guides. That probably exists someplace, too, right? I definitely saw some things that were inconsistent and/or clearly wrong, like OOoMenuPath being used instead of OOoStrongEmphasis, or dialog names using different character styles in different places. But that kind of correction is very time-consuming, and probably beyond the scope of this effort right now. It would help for later reference, though.

PS -- Sure glad the floods didn't get you!

> Seriously, shouldn't you get the glossary from Sophie and start with
> that? It will probably contain most of the terms that the team needs,
> without lengthy debate.
> Jean

I agree. What I was thinking about is a compilation not just of the terms, but also of what
paragraph style (fairly obvious as a rule) and especially what character style (sometimes not so
obvious) to use for each of the kinds of things we talk about in the guides. That probably exists
someplace, too, right?

Look in the template. They should be described there, although I don't
think it contains a definitive list, and a summary from the POV of "For
item x, use style XX" to supplement "Use style XX for items X, Y, Z"
info in the template would be very useful. (That's been on my to-do list
for OOo for years.)

I definitely saw some things that were inconsistent and/or clearly wrong,

Yes, especially in some of the chapters (like #9) that haven't been
properly worked on for several iterations. And no one at OOo has ever
had the leisure to do a thorough consistency fix-up.

like OOoMenuPath being used instead of OOoStrongEmphasis, or dialog names using different character
styles in different places. But that kind of correction is very time-consuming, and probably beyond
the scope of this effort right now. It would help for later reference, though.

PS -- Sure glad the floods didn't get you!

We are fortunate this time, but our turn could still come, if/when a
cyclone comes through the north in the next 2-3 months.

--Jean

Hi Jean, Barbara,

Seriously, shouldn't you get the glossary from Sophie and start with
that? It will probably contain most of the terms that the team needs,
without lengthy debate.
Jean

I agree. What I was thinking about is a compilation not just of the
terms, but also of what paragraph style (fairly obvious as a rule) and
especially what character style (sometimes not so obvious) to use for
each of the kinds of things we talk about in the guides. That probably
exists someplace, too, right? I definitely saw some things that were
inconsistent and/or clearly wrong, like OOoMenuPath being used instead
of OOoStrongEmphasis, or dialog names using different character styles
in different places. But that kind of correction is very time-consuming,
and probably beyond the scope of this effort right now. It would help
for later reference, though.

So we were using an online tool called SunGloss to maintain this glossaries for several languages. It was a great tool, but Oracle has decided to shut it down and use OpenCTI instead wich is a translation tool, so it's not the same usage unfortunately. I'm still thinking of a tool to maintain our glossaries, but their is currently more important tasks for me.

Here you'll find the last export I've made from SunGloss for the French language:
http://fr.openoffice.org/files/documents/67/4226/export_20080417_en-US_fr-FR.zip

This file contains all the words used in the UI with the French translation and comments about this translation and also the state of the word (approved or pending). So there is too much information but at least you get the list of word. Also it's from 2008, so some new words are missing, I can provide you with a list of them later (I maintain another glossary now).
To open the file, you should change the extension to .csv and open it as a tab separated value file with Calc, then you'll be able to filter the file easily.

Hope this help to begin, but I think the more useful really would be to have an online tool accessible to each author to add words and comments, even for style, where there is the ability to make some export for offline work.

PS -- Sure glad the floods didn't get you!

yes, sure :slight_smile:

Kind regards
Sohie

Hi :slight_smile:

While i prefer "dialog box" i still think "dialog" is far better than "window".
"Window" is tooo generic and could be talking about almost anything on the
screen, or the screen itself or famously from a support-line-story even
off-screen.

The story was a user phoned tech-support and had trouble with everything they
said. They finally said "and now just open the window" which resulted in
silence from his end, some footsteps and then bird-song.

Also with something too generic (such as windows) there is a danger of
contravening copyright or even just totally confusing people if the word is used
at the beginning of a sentence.

I'm happy with "dialog", it's close enough to what i prefer and specific enough
to mean something.

I guess i might be interested in something like that working group but i tend to
prefer just standing on the side-lines and complaining about everything!
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

There are a few starting points for something like this but all i have is
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Glossary

One of the Ubuntu translators teams mentioned about sharing some sort of
glossary/dictionary/translated-words across amny projects but i can't remeber
and can't find any details right now.

Sophie sounded as tho she had salvaged something rejected by Oracle that was
incredibly useful. It would be better to implement that imo.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Seriously, shouldn't you get the glossary from Sophie and start with
that? It will probably contain most of the terms that the team needs,
without lengthy debate.
Jean

I agree. What I was thinking about is a compilation not just of the terms, but also of what
paragraph style (fairly obvious as a rule) and especially what character style (sometimes not so
obvious) to use for each of the kinds of things we talk about in the guides. That probably exists
someplace, too, right?

Look in the template. They should be described there, although I don't
think it contains a definitive list, and a summary from the POV of "For
item x, use style XX" to supplement "Use style XX for items X, Y, Z"
info in the template would be very useful. (That's been on my to-do list
for OOo for years.)

Ah! Never thought to look there -- the template in its older form had already been applied, just reapplied it to pick up changes. Good stuff! Maybe when we're done with the rebranding I can take some time for the reversed POV summary. I expect there might also be some additional character styles that would help by being obviously intended when referring to parts of the UI, for example.

I definitely saw some things that were inconsistent and/or clearly wrong,

Yes, especially in some of the chapters (like #9) that haven't been
properly worked on for several iterations. And no one at OOo has ever
had the leisure to do a thorough consistency fix-up.

I went after it pretty thoroughly for content just now, but gave up on the consistency aspect due to the time involved. This is the kind of thing I'm perfectly willing to do, though.