I was working on my current project and saw that I have an ellipsis in a MenuItem Reference. (pure hazard; no chance here because chance does not exists as said my good old maths professor).
Is it bad ?
How bad can it be ?
FWIW: since I have more and more bad behaviors.
You mean the name of the MenuItem ?
Back when Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines were adhered to and made things drastically easier for people to learn, ellipses were supposed to always be used on MenuItems that would open a dialog box to present more options (such as “Page Setup…” or “Save As…”) but never on a MenuItem that would trigger an immediate action (such as “Save” or “Paste”).
Michel:
I get it:
Dim c as MenuItem
c=EditMenu.child("EditCut")
MsgBox c.text
Yes, I meant c.Name, not c.Text (c.Text was filled with an ellipsis and so it goes to the MenuItem Name).
Seth: OK for the explanation, but this does not apply. I have to display the ellipsis to the user, not in the Xojo reference (or name).
Since many years, the ellipsis is no more used, we have to use three dots.
Both: thanks for the help.
No, use the actual ellipses character. It’s U+2026 HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS and can be formed by option-; on a US keyboard, selecting it in the character palette, or copying and pasting “ ”.
I recall reading that the standard is the real ellipsis under MacOS, but three periods under Windows. Anyway, the ellipsis is option-; on the French layout too (the French semicolon position, that is, on the bottom row).
What I recall is:
it was what you wrote until “rencently” (Cocoa ?) where the new use is three dots (just like what you say for WIndows).
I will come back here if I found the real “current” way from Apples HIG (or web).
The ellipsis character &u2026 has been available for over 20 years, so it is reasonable to use it now on both Mac and Windows.
In the OS X Human Interface Guidelines, Naming Menus and Items, Apple wrote “use an ellipsis to show users that further action is required to complete the command.” (in bold).
BTW: Michel, in Appearance.Text part of a MenuItem, place an Ellipsis character (instead of three dots) and watch what is set in the ID.Name field (this was my original intend/question).