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Subject:RE: What do we call this button? From:Sanjay Srikonda <SSrikonda -at- invlink -dot- com> To:"'Newman, Sarah'" <snewman -at- bechtel -dot- com>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 18 Oct 2000 14:01:34 -0400
I had to hold my head when I read the reference to the "three-dot button".
Has this former employee been hunted down and been taught NOT to be cute? I
have many of these "buttons" and refer instead to the "button to the right
of the field" and then "choose the appropriate item from the resulting
list". I've also seen these buttons referred to as "the ellipsis to the
right of the field" This IS an ellipsis, it means click me and I'll show
you something more which is what ellipses are meant to show you, from my
humble understanding.
But, that's IMHO.
-----Original Message-----
From: Newman, Sarah [mailto:snewman -at- bechtel -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 2:00 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: What do we call this button?
Hi,
We have a minor controversy going here, and I hope some of you can give us
some input. I searched the archives but didn't find anything related.
The program we're documenting has numerous fields where you can directly
enter a value or you can select one from a list. To get to the list, you
click a button to the right of the field with an ellipsis (...) on it. This
brings up a separate dialog box with the list and an OK button.
We have been referring to this as the ellipsis (...) button (e.g. "Click the
ellipsis button and select the item from the list"). However, the developers
want to call it the list button. We have a colorful former colleague who
referred to this button as the "three dot button". I suppose we could write
around a name (e.g., "click the button to the right of the field"), but this
adds to the bulkiness of an already very long book.
<snip>