Re: [Tails-ux] Help needed: Nautilus Wipe progress dialog ti…

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Autor: Diddly-Squat
Data:  
A: tails-ux
Assumpte: Re: [Tails-ux] Help needed: Nautilus Wipe progress dialog title
On Thu, 05 Mar 2015 22:09:23 +0100
intrigeri <intrigeri@???> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> [re-adding Colomban to the recipients list, please keep him in
> there -- thanks!]
>
> Diddly-Squat wrote (05 Mar 2015 19:31:58 GMT) :
> > On Tue, 03 Mar 2015 19:10:52 +0000
> > sajolida <sajolida@???> wrote:
>
> > If something changes in regards to the menu selection, the help info
> > for Nautilus refers consistently to using wipe or wiping.
> > And the term is ubiquitous in Nautilus (menus, dialogs, etc).
>
> I could not find any instance of "wipe" or "wiping" in the Nautilus
> (Debian's 3.14.1-2) source code, so I'll assume you're talking about
> Nautilus Wipe, not about Nautilus.


I'm speaking of Nautilus Wipe. Which is the progarm we're speaking
about, correct? Otherwise, I'm out of line. If so, sorry!


>
> If I'm correct, then the current ubiquity of the "wipe" word just
> means that there are more places (in Nautilus Wipe) where the new
> phrasing should be used, rather than an argument in favour of keeping
> the old one... or did I misunderstand what you meant?


The Nautilus Wipe help, consistently uses wipe (as you would expect).
(click a file > Wipe > Help).

Thinking more about it, I'm actually in
favor of keeping the term "wipe". More on that later.

>
> > In the case of a UI element the title would be "Secure delete"
>
> I'll let our GNOME HIG experts double-check :)


Being a technical writer, and knowing that Tails uses Gnome as the
style, I did in fact check the Gnome HIG and Style Guide prior to
making this statement. Gnome doesn't get to that level of specificity,
at least that I was able to find. (I also based this on an
intimate familiarity with a number of other corporate style guides,
excepting Microsoft, due to a long standing dislike)

While there is no right or wrong in this area, it does in fact come
down to style. In general, using the root form of the verb "delete"
offers a few advantages (versus adding a prefix or
suffix like -tion, e.g. "deletion".

1) The root form is shorter
2) In most cases the root form makes for easier translation (allegedly,
I only speak English)
3) Grammatically, "deletion" is expressing an
action. In most UI elements what you want to state a function,
which is "to delete". A subtle but important difference. I think if you
look at other commercial products you'll notice this subtlety.

I'm interested in their response.

I might add, that perhaps this all seems much too detailed, but I don't
think so. Having this level of conversation is important well
beyond this particular detail. Defining the style, and the rationale
behind it affects every action going forward.

It's nice to see that Gnome was decided upon as a style, and to see
that engineering has adhered to it so well. I think everyone involved
has done an excelent job! The fact that the initial insight was there
shows an inherent wisdom well beyond many companies. Example, I spent
the last couple of years in a SaaS startup that made everything from
scratch - no style guide. The end result is major redesign.

>
> > I think changing the term when talking about files versus disk
> > spaces is a mistake. that is, of you use "Secure delete" when
> > speaking about files use "Secure delete" also when speaking about
> > disk space. It is consistent now when using Wipe and Wipe available
> > disk space.
>
> It doesn't make sense to me to "Securely delete empty disk space".


I agree. And now perhaps I'm confused in the context. Are we always
speaking about empty space?


> How can one delete something that's empty? But perhaps that's only me,
> as both a non-native English speaker and technical person.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> intrigeri


Ciao for now. DS.
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