[Fwd: Re: Gnome Icons, Gnome/KDE Menus need improvement]

[Seth Nickell]

On Mon, 2004-06-14 at 10:23 -0500, Rex Dieter wrote:
> Bryan Clark wrote:
> >   I made a bug over the weekend to remind myself to fix the HIG on this. 
> > 
> > http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=144284
> > 
> > The F.D.O spec seems to suggest that Name is purely the proper name of 
> > the application without the description of functionality included.  We 
> > should align on this issue.  My recommendation is to format the Name as 
> > "[Proper Name] [Description of Functionality]" and GenericName as 
> > "[Description of Functionality]".  When two applications exist with the 
> > same "[Description of Functionality]" then the Name is used instead.
> 
> I'm glad someone (esp @redhat) has seen the light.  I suggested doing 
> *exactly* this on the fedora-devel list a few weeks ago, and it was 
> dismissed.

Bryan and I have discussed this and we're not doing it. From an end
desktop-user (not one of the active community folks, but Abby) the name
of the item *is* what we put in the menu. When you or I see "Web
Browser" in the menus we think "that item is epiphany". But to Abby,
that item is "Web Browser": it has no other name. A good example is the
calculator, because "Calculator" is the name of the program to us.
Wouldn't it be weird if, upon installing "Pro+ Calculator" calculator,
suddenly the default calculator was called "SimpleMath Calculator" (or
whatever)? Its like some magic new name appeared for it!

"Web Browser" is the *real name* of the item to Abby, not Epiphany.
Calling it "Epiphany Web Browser" all of the sudden because I installed
"Firefox Web Browser" is going to be weird, and it doesn't really help
anything. "Epiphany" is just as foreign to Abby as "SimpleMath
Calculator" is to us.

The only two valid options I see are always including the branding name,
or never including it. But, for example, Epiphany and Gaim are just as
core to the desktop as a Calculator (perhaps more core at this point). I
don't see a particular reason to brand them and not Calculator (except
that we happen to be used to the branded names, which is why everyone
gets all excited about generic names).

Upstream GNOME and KDE should include both Name and GenericName tags,
but the reason is so they are translated so upstream distributors can
easily choose whether to use the Branded Name[TM] or the GenericName for
a particular item.

-Seth