Add ellipsis indication to menu entries

daniel.r

The ellipsis indicates that further user interaction is necessary before executing the function. In particular, the user can just click on those menu items in order to explore what happens rather than being afraid of anything unwanted happening.

A couple of menu entries lack the ellipsis (...) indication after the menu entry, for example, all the first order menu entries in the "Tools" menu ("RTF Scan", "Install Browser Connector", "Plugins").

dstillman

No, an ellipsis isn't used for menu options that just launch some feature or open some window. It's used for operations that require additional input, usually via a modal dialog, before performing the operation implied by the menu item.

It wouldn't be at all appropriate for RTF Scan or Plugins.

The only one that might merit it is "Install Browser Connector", not because launching a URL in a browser should generally have an ellipsis (see the three Zotero web links in the Help menu, which appropriately do not have ellipses), but because it more strongly implies that it's going to directly do something, and one could reasonable be uneasy about what will happen next.

daniel.r

I don't see your explanation contradicting mine. I think that you are definitely right about "Plugins" because it just shows the plugins. But I think that you are wrong about "RTF Scan" on your own terms since "RTF Scan" requires additional input. Here are some references:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/637708

Take the Microsoft guide quoted there:

"While menu commands are used for immediate actions, more information might be needed to perform the action. Indicate a command that needs additional information (including a confirmation) by adding an ellipsis at the end of the label.

This doesn't mean you should use an ellipsis whenever an action displays another window—only when additional information is required to perform the action. For example, the commands About, Advanced, Help, Options, Properties, and Settings must display another window when clicked, but don't require additional information from the user. Therefore they don't need ellipses."

"RTF Scan" does not even work at all without choosing a file to execute the scan on. So, I think it suits the description when using ellipsis rather nicely. Don't you think?

Though you might have in mind that the menu stands for "Open the RTF Scan Tool". In that case there is a point. But since it is not obvious that this is what the menu stands for rather performing the scan (in fact this seems more literally the meaning), I would suggest to add the ellipsis in order for the user to see that more will be asked after clicking the menu entry.

Anyway, not the biggest of a deal. This was just meant as a helpful comment. No need to argue much further about it if you prefer not to.

dstillman

Yes, "RTF Scan" is just the name of a feature — it's not an operation. Every app feature you can trigger in every menu is going to require some sort of further interaction, but that doesn't mean they all need ellipses — that's just pointless visual noise. No one is going to be scared to click on "RTF Scan" because they're worried it might do something without further interaction.

(For what it's worth, Microsoft and Apple, while having similar guidance on this, seem to take somewhat different tacks here. In Word, at least on macOS, Microsoft adds an ellipsis after almost everything — e.g, "Word Count…" or "Researcher…". Apple tends to reserve them for actual commands that one might interpret as doing something on their own, which seems much more sensible to me.)

But we'll add an ellipsis on "Install Browser Connector", since that actually does sound like it's going to do something.