RE. Naming conventions for images?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Guess I missed the start of this thread, but here are a few helpful tips
that should work for all file systems currently in use:

First, restrict names to 8.3 format (eight characters before the decimal and
three after). HTML files would thus have the suffix ".htm" rather than
".html". This means the file should work fine on any system, even <shudder>
MS-DOS.

Second, get in the habit of typing all names entirely in lowercase letters.
Some file systems are "case-sensitive", which means that "FILE" and "file"
are not the same creature. Lowercase is easier to read than uppercase, which
is why I recommend it, though it can pose problems with fonts that use a
visually similar character for L and the number 1. If that's going to be a
common problem, I recommend using a standard naming convention, such as
requiring two digits for all numbers (thus, "file1" becomes "file01"). You
won't run into difficulties with "oh" and zero, since you'll be using
lower-case letters (o), which are visually different from zeros (0).

Third, to address the valid criticism that restricting yourself to 8.3
characters makes it hard to know what the file name is, create a directory
structure that helps you remember what the name represents. Thus, if you
have a bewildering variety of programs, each with its own program icon, try
something like: c:\monday\morning\before10\usenglish\progicon.bmp
In a perfect world, you'd be able to write this out in full as the name, but
this cheat goes a long way towards creating a memorable name for the icon.
It also makes it much easier to organize and manage your graphics.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Technical writing... requires understanding the audience, understanding
what activities the user wants to accomplish, and translating the often
idiosyncratic and unplanned design into something that appears to make
sense."--Donald Norman, The Invisible Computer