Let me just say that I've been "trained", after years of using Windows,
to expect a dialog box after a "..." and no dialog box without a "...".
And I usually don't like it when some app with a poor user interface
does not put "..." on dialogs that are clearly going to result in a
dialog box.
This is especially important for options like "Print", because the
abscence of "..." tells me that the document is going to be printed out
immediately, while the presence the ellipsis tells me that there will be
a dialog box letting me set up the printer settings & all that.
However, evil Microsoft made this special case (for what reason???) of
"Properties": that's the only menu item without "..." that I can think
of that yields a dialog box in standard Microsoft apps. I have no idea
why they did this, as "Properties..." is clearly clearer :). It took me
some time to get used to in Windows 95. Now I'm used to it, but having
exceptions like this sucks.
So let's use "...".
- Oleg
Charles Manske wrote:
>
> Should we use "..." at the end of menu text items that put you in a
> Properties dialog? In Composer, we have 3 items in the Format menu:
> 1. The dynamic Properties item (changes to Horizontal Line, Image, etc
> depending on what object is selected.
> 2. "Page Colors and Background..."
> 3. "Page Title and Properties..."
> 4. "List Properties" in the "List" submenu. (Note that this currently
> doesn't have "...", which is wrong. All 'property' items should be
> consistent.)
> Sources I've read still seem to suggest using "..." when user will "take
> more action", primarily by interacting with a dialog box. But there's
> lots of programs that don't seem to use "..." for 'Properties' menu
> items. I think the argument for that is this: if a dialog is needed so
> the user supplies extra needed information before executing the action
> of the menu item, then use "..." E.g., for "Print...", the user needs to
> select the printer from a dialog.
> But for the case of Property dialogs, the menu action itself *is* the
> setting of properties or attributes in the dialog, so the "..." isn't
> necessary.
> If anyone has any GUI references that address this issue, I'd like to
> hear about it.
