Re: appears vs is displayed

["Wing, Michael J" <mjwing -at- INGR -dot- COM>]

>Hi ya'll:
>
>I'm in the middle of a raging debate among several tech writers about
>the use of "appears" vs "is displayed," e.g.:
>
>"Click Add and the Add Patient window is displayed."
>vs
>"Click Add and the Add Patient window appears."
>
>Even though it uses the passive voice, I personally prefer "is
>displayed." To me, "appears" sounds like it happens through magic. Any
>thoughts?
>
I find no problem with using appears.  Happening like magic is probably
a good analogy.  There is no real magic.  The object that suddenly
appears in the Magician's hand was there all along.  Only it was not
visible.  The dialog box, window, object or whatever, also appears
without the user seeing from whence it came.  But it was also there all
along (as non-visible electronic data).

Mike Wing
>
                                         INTERGRAPH
|   Michael Wing
|  &   Principal Technical Writer
|          Infrastructure Technical Information Development
|          Intergraph Corporation; Huntsville, Alabama
|  :    http://www.ingr.com/iss/products/mapping/
|  (   (205) 730-7250
| .   mjwing -at- ingr -dot- com

>

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