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I was interested in the comments yesterday about
the word "field." I understand that
the original question related to
writing for a web page.
I write the Administrator's Manual, User Manuals,
Security Manual and other documents for
a software application used in the retail industry.
I use the word "field" quite often.
Are people suggesting that this is
old-fashioned and inappropriate? I must
admit I don't love the word "field".
But of course
I can't always replace it with "text box" as
suggested in some of yesterday's postings.
There are also many numeric fields.
For example, assume the doc says:
"<productname> uses this field
to determine if the year-end should be moved
forward when ....."
It could be changed to say
"<productname> uses your entry here to
determine if the year-end should be moved
forward when ...."
The latter implies that the user should always
make an entry here, whereas usually the
user just leaves the default provided.
So I have found "field" very convenient (and
short). But should I move away from it?
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