Comments on: Where is that whatchamacallit?

By: keith mc gregor

keith mc gregor — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:58:58 +0000

I use the term “disclosure triangle” for the twirlie. I heard it somewhere once and I like it good enough, and it really confuses newbies.

By: MK

MK — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:43:00 +0000

I vote for renaming the hand tool to Mr. Spanky. Thanks Anne-Marie Concepcion!

By: Gfx-Dzine

Gfx-Dzine — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:12:44 +0000

@ David:

I think I would opt for “click the expand triangle”

..guess we have to ask the developers what actually happens with the traingle when clicked in an expandable state..
If they -replace- the graphic when clicked with a downwards pointing one then you’re right.
But if they just rotate it – then that same one is also used to collapse again so it should be : “click the expand/collapse triangle”..

@ John Feld:

Text to outlines in Indesign? May I ask for what purpose? A Mask or?

By: Lee UK

Lee UK — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:06:07 +0000

The shortcut for a frame is F, so I could never forget what they’re called.

By: Pat HH

Pat HH — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:12:46 +0000

To me, a major source of the terminology problem is the programmers of major packages who 1) reuse terms which have a standard meaning in English for something slightly or substantially different; 2) arbitrarily change terms in a new release of a program when there was nothing wrong in the previous version. MS is notorious for this, but I’m afraid Adobe has some blame to. Programmers also need to be careful to think about words with multiple meanings: check a box is always ambiguous in American English, but can mean the wrong thing in English English.

By: Rudi Warttmann

Rudi Warttmann — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 06:21:48 +0000

And these ones are just the beginning of the confusion. Especially in the German version, wrong and/or misleading translations (sometimes changing from CS to CS version) complete the confusion.

Obviously the DTP translators don’t know anything about DTP, but only can speak and write two languages (more or less).

By: John Feld

John Feld — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:24:15 +0000

As an InDesign teacher, I try to use the correct terminology all the time. But I often get questions like: “Do you mean the text box?”
Once I establish the correct terminology on our class web sites, I gently correct wrong usage.
I got Twisties from Michael Ninness years ago, and it kind of stuck, but I often have to explain that one.
Mr. Spanky is now standard nomenclature as far as I am concerned. But I always explain White Arrow or Black Arrow to make sure they get it right. text to outlines can go horribly wrong otherwise.

By: Linda Hall

Linda Hall — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:03:19 +0000

Yes, and it’s really great, but my problem was way back in the olden days of the first version of ID.

By: Eugene Tyson

Eugene Tyson — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:39:42 +0000

The master himself did it here http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/indesign/articles/indcs3at_quarkmigration.html

By: Linda Hall

Linda Hall — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:22:21 +0000

I love this discussion! What bothered me the most when first learning to use InDesign was the different terminology, and I couldn’t find a Quark-to InDesign translation dictionary anywhere. The problem sent me back to using Quark often, because InDesign Help was no help when you had no idea what something was named!