Ellipsis

[geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]

 Darla Kennington wondered <<The Windows Interface
 Guidelines for Software Design seems to indicate you should
 leave the ellipse off of the buttons, but always use them
 in menus.>>

 First, treat any style guidelines from Microsoft as
 suspect... they provide a good starting point, but they're
 not the final word on usability. Assuming that you mean
 "ellipsis" (...), it makes perfect sense to me to put this
 on buttons for the sake of consistency with the menus, but
 with one caveat: the ellipsis in menu choices means that
 "you'll have to answer some more questions before anything
 else happens". If the button functions like "OK" or
 "Cancel", and doesn't require further user input to work,
 it shouldn't have the ellipsis.

 Anyway, if that's the worst user-interface issue you have
 to deal with, count yourself lucky. I could tell you
 stories...

 --Geoff Hart     @8^{)}     geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
 Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.

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