Gnome User Guide: Customizing the Panel Menubar (revised)

[Matthew East]

Hi,

On 28/08/07, Jim Kissel <jlk at osml.eu> wrote:
> It's call "Menu Bar" in the "Add to Panel" dialogue.  This is what
> convinced me to go in the direction of "Menu Bar".  Also in Feisty Yelp,
> it's call "Menu Bar" in:
> Using the Panels -> Introduction -> Top Edge Panel
> Using the Panels -> Buttons -> Menus
> Using the Panels -> Default Panel Objects
> Using the Panels -> Default Panel Objects -> Menu Bar panel object
>
> I'll go either way on this one, but I would like consistency. Personal
> preference is "Menu Bar".  Otherwise we would need to sort out the "Add
> to Panel" dialogue to bring in in line with the Gnome User Guide
> terminology.

If the user-guide uses the term "Menu Bar" elsewhere, then I'm
guessing that the discrepancy isn't intentional.

> Anyone else with strong opinions on which term should be used?

I've done some research and think we should use "menubar", and contact
the authors of the Add To Panel dialogue to sort out the difference.

Although there doesn't appear to be anything in the Gnome
Documentation Project styleguide about this[1], the HIG guidelines use
"menubar"[2]. Also, in Gnome documentation, "menubar" appears to be
more common: there are 458 instances of "menubar" on
library.gnome.org[3], whereas there are only 78 instances of "menu
bar"[4]. Our styleguide also uses "menubar"[5].

[1] http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdp-style-guide/2.19/menu-terminology.html.en
[2] http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/menus.html#menus-menubar
[3] http://www.google.com/custom?domains=library.gnome.org&sitesearch=library.gnome.org&q=menubar
[4] http://www.google.com/custom?domains=library.gnome.org&sitesearch=library.gnome.org&q=menubar
[5] http://doc.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/styleguide/en/terminology-2.html

Having said that, perhaps it would be worth discussing this upstream;
I'm not sure who the relevant person is for the discussion.

-- 
Matthew East
http://www.mdke.org
gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF