[Scummvm-devel] Capitalisation of ScummVM options

[Thierry Crozat]

Hi all,

In the stretch mode PR the discussion about capitalisation of option labels came up. So I had a look at out current Options dialog, and it indeed lacks consistency. Sometimes only the first word is capitalised, some other times, all words are capitalised, and even rarely none of the words are capitalised. Here are some examples:
'Graphics mode:' but 'Preferred Device:'
'AdLib Emulator' but 'Mame OPL emulator'
' Music volume' but 'Mute All'

I looked at the Gnome, Apple and Microsoft Human Interface Guidelines, and obviously they do not agree with each others (that would be too simple).
My suggestion would be to follow the Gnome HIG, which is quite similar to the Apple one , and means:
 - Title style capitalisation for push buttons or tabs.
 - Sentence style capitalisation for checkboxes, radio buttons, comboboxes labels and content.

What do you think?
Once there is an agreement I can prepare a pull request with the changes to follow this, and also add the information to the wiki.

Here is an excerpt of the Gnome guidelines (from https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/writing-style.html.en <https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/writing-style.html.en>):
 - Header capitalization should be used for any headings, including header bar headings and page, tab and menu titles. It should also be used for short control labels that do not normally form proper sentences, such as button labels, switch labels and menu items.
 - Sentence capitalization should be used for labels that form sentences or that run on to other text, including labels for check boxes, radio buttons, sliders, text entry boxes, field labels and combobox labels.

The Apple HIG (https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/overview/themes/ <https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/overview/themes/>) is less clear cut and indicates:
 - For Combo Boxes: Use an introductory label to let the user know what types of items to expect. Generally, labels should use title-style capitalization and end with a colon.
 - Use title-case for push button titles.
 - In general, use a label to introduce a pop-up button. The label should utilize sentence-style capitalization and end with a colon.
 - For radio buttons: Generally, use sentence style capitalization without ending punctuation.

However I looked at the Apple Mail and Safari Preferences dialog, and they use sentence style capitalisation for the Combo Boxes introductory labels, which seems to go counter to what their HIG says. The combo boxes content though use title-style-capitalization.

 A summary of the Microsoft HIG (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/uxguide/text-ui <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/uxguide/text-ui>) is:
 - Use title-style capitalization for titles, sentence-style capitalization for all other UI elements.
 - Exception: For legacy applications, you may use title-style capitalization for command buttons, menus, and column headings if necessary to avoid mixing capitalization styles.

So Microsoft actually uses sentence style capitalisation for tab or push button labels for example (except for "legacy" applications).

Appendix:

Gnome defines header capitalization as capitalizing
  - All words with four or more letters.
  - Verbs of any length, such as “Be”, “Are”, “Is”, “See” and “Add”.
  - The first and last word.
  - Hyphenated words; for example: “Self-Test” or “Post-Install”.
For example: “Create a Document”, “Find and Replace”, “Document Cannot Be Found”.

Apple defines title-style capitalization as follow: capitalize every word except:
 - Articles (a, an, the)
 - Coordinating conjunctions (and, or)
 - Prepositions of four or fewer letters, except when the preposition is part of a verb phrase, as in “Starting Up the Computer”


Thierry
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