RE: What is the best term to use?

["Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>]

> From: Janice Gelb

> Yet another reason to hate the current Swiss Army
> Knife approach to web applications.

However, as web applications grow, some form of handling must evolve and
tabular handling seems to have a great deal of usability with a short
learning curve.  So it could become a de facto standard in web applications.

> I would definitely advise against calling the discrete
> entities "applications" as I think users pretty much
> think of an "application" as the whole shebang. And
> "applet" has a pretty specific technical meaning too,
> I think.

Applet refers to an application within an application.  Beyond that, there
really isn't a great deal of specifity in the term.

> Could you perhaps call these "tabs" when referring
> to accessing them but then use a collective like
> "options" or "functions" when talking about them?

This is true if a tab only provides options.  But, in the case of the Siebel
application that I'm dealing with, the top row of tabs present screens and
the next row of tabs below the screens and operating with data from the
screens presents options to perform specific database functions.  In my case
two applets (second row tabs) are being replaced by a single applet that
provides relational database functionality rather than a crosstab database
interface.  Some of the applets also have their own tabs.  (That'd be the
stuff I'm analyzin'.)

Whether a tab provides a set of options or a set of operational functions,
like database manipulation, will impact whether a tab is a "tab" or an
"applet."

We need to remain flexible as web technology grows and accept that we will
need new terms or new definitions to old terms, but, as technical
communicators, we also need to remain ardent in maintaining cogent terms for
elements within web applications, or any application.  How do we communicate
a thing, any *thing*, if every application developer has a different name
for the thing?  I think that in this case, the technical communicator has a
bit of duty to determine the term that is used.  

...Then of course, I'm drinking wine while preparing for an intense exam not
related to technical writing, so I might be a little lofty.  But I'm
sticking with using the term "applet."  Happy Sunday.  "Desperate..." is on
in an hour, so I'd better finish my study so's I can watch it.

Lauren

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