The top right on/off button

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

On 2011-04-18 12:16, Tom Davies wrote:
> On 2011-04-18 02:16, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
>> ... we are talking about the icon with the symbol (circel and
>> vertical bar) that usually stands for switching on or off
>> something.
> 
> Hmmm, as you say most electrical appliances use that symbol on their
> on/off button so i think we should call it that.  The session
> manager stuff are just variants on the on/off idea.  People switch
> off one user and switch on the other.  Ok, that is a bit of a stretch
> but i think it's more intuitive just to give it a generic name that
> non-computer users will recognise.

Maybe. I for one would be more inclined to agree if it hadn't been for
the new "System Settings" menu item. Suggesting that users click the
"on/off button" or "on/off icon" when guiding them to a launcher in the
"Control Center" does not feel right to me.

Anyway, if it's decided on a distinct term to refer to the thing, I
suppose it should be included at ghelp:gnome-help#shell-terminology.
Btw, the current "System settings" explanation on the terminology page
is one example where "click your name" needs to be replaced with
something else.

Without knowing anything about the considerations behind the decision to
include "System Settings" in the session menu, it was a disputable
decision IMHO. Accordingly I for one consider this to really be a design
issue, and I can't see that it's possible to deal with it in the docs in
a perfect way. Let's just do the best of it for now.

Another thought that comes up in my head is that while a sensible and
consistent terminology is crucial in reference docs, it's not that
important in user docs. I mean, can we really expect the target audience
of the user docs to go to a terminology page to be able to understand
the docs? Probably not.

>> Considering which items the menu currently show, I suppose that the
>> icon should better be replaced.
> 
> I do really think we should keep the icon.  It is identical to the
> symbol used on most appliances that people are familiar with.

Ok. As you understand from what I wrote above, it doesn't matter much to
me. ;-)

-- 
Gunnar Hjalmarsson