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I wrote: "When you click the Home page icon, the Techwhirler Home page
displays".
Oops there. Used the wrong example with the "Home page". Very duh of me.
Should've used this instead: "Press the ENTER key. A warning message
displays." But I get the message. :)
I could go with "opens" for pages, dialogs, documents, panels, panes,
windows and such and "appears" for everything else maybe. Thanks Dick
and others for your inputs.
And thanks Lou for those pared-down examples. That's how I write them
too. Honest.
I lazily used my original example for you to focus on the intransitive
usage of "display". And I was hoping to use your approval of that usage
as air cover, just in case a future editor were to call me out on that.
:)
Cheers,
Jayaseelan
-----Original Message-----
From: Lou Quillio [mailto:quillio -at- gmail -dot- com]
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:28 PM
To: Jayaseelan Pannirselvam
Cc: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Displays vs. Appears
<jayaseelan -dot- pannirselvam -at- ite -dot- com -dot- au> wrote:
> "When you click the Home page icon, the Techwhirler Home page
> displays"
"Click the home page icon to display the Techwhirler home page."
or
"Click the home page icon to view the Techwhirler home page."
Eleven words versus thirteen, active verb first, no ambiguity. And the
second one cuts [out] a syllable. ;)
"Open" is okay, but you'll probably need it elsewhere to describe a
different action, like "opening" a file for editing. If you've used
"open" to mean both "view" and "open" -- and the references are close
together -- some folks are thrown-off ...
... or their misunderstandings perpetuate. It's astonishing how many
consumers misunderstand basic UI metaphors, especially in a network
context. There are still folks who say "My website is
`lousajerk -at- example -dot- com`", or "I'm on Netscape. What are you on?" (this
before there was a branded Netscape ISP service: they equated their
browser software choice with their network connection). Similar
misapprehensions are still out there, and we rarely know it.
Luckily we don't have to define "click" any more. "Right-click" is
another story.
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