Re: To dialog or not to dialog, etc.

["Janet S. Myers" <Janet -dot- Myers-1 -at- TC -dot- UMN -dot- EDU>]

On Wed, 3 Apr 1996 16:23:09 -0700,Bill Sullivan
<bsullivan -at- SMTPLINK -dot- DELTECPOWER -dot- COM> wrote:

>Whether users read OS manuals or not is beside the point that Susan
>W. Gallagher and Bev Parks have made so well.  The point is that you
>and I, dear tech writer, should talk the right talk when it comes to
>our environments.  We should know a window from a dialog box, for
>example.
etc.

With which I pretty much agree.  I used to call them all windows even
though _I_ knew the difference, but found that all of the developers and
most of the users who had opinions wanted me to identify dialog boxes as
such.  On the other hand, the users were less interested in the different
names for different types of drop-down lists.  I personnally hate the term
"combo box".

In the same area, I'm seeking opinions, which I sure some of you have, on
what do you call the smallest part of a table layout in a window?

Coming from a data base background, when I'm refering to a particular one
in a row, I call it a field.  Most of the developers I work with now think
of the tables as spreadsheets and call them cells.  Somewhere along the
line I started referring to rows rather than records, but can't remember
when. I also refer to a collection of fields/cells as a column. In Windows,
is anything a field?

So, should I say, type a name in the whatsit cell of the whosit row?
(I should point out that the current project still has hypothetical users.)

Thanks for any help.
Janet Myers
myers032 -at- maroon -dot- tc -dot- umn -dot- edu