Bug 129288 - Main menu entries: Shape or Shapes, Sheet or Sheets, Form or Forms?
Summary: Main menu entries: Shape or Shapes, Sheet or Sheets, Form or Forms?
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: UI (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
unspecified
Hardware: All All
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: difficultyBeginner, easyHack, skillDesign, topicDesign
Depends on:
Blocks: Main-Menu
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Reported: 2019-12-09 09:56 UTC by Olivier Hallot
Modified: 2023-10-05 20:16 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

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Description Olivier Hallot 2019-12-09 09:56:24 UTC
I'm no English UI linguistic expert, only a lousy pt-BR translator, but I think the Draw top menu entry 'Shape' should actually be better if in plural, 'Shapes'.

The plural helps to precise it as noun and not a verb or action.

Same logic applies to Calc "Sheet", Writer 'Form' and Impress "Slide" entries.
Comment 1 Heiko Tietze 2019-12-09 10:16:09 UTC
Not sure that plural is better here as you also use Shape to manipulate single objects, Sheet to deal with row/columns on the actual spreadsheet etc.

Other opinions?
Comment 2 BogdanB 2019-12-09 10:29:19 UTC
In the menu there is also Page.

How would be with plural? Pages | Shapes 

With singular: Page | Shape

In fact you customize a "page" and insert a "shape".

My opinion is to keep like it is now.
Comment 3 Olivier Hallot 2019-12-09 11:39:55 UTC
(In reply to BogdanB from comment #2)
> In the menu there is also Page.
> 
> How would be with plural? Pages | Shapes 
> 
> With singular: Page | Shape
> 
> In fact you customize a "page" and insert a "shape".
> 
> My opinion is to keep like it is now.

Contents of the Shape menu entry is a set of commands and actions on one or more shapes -> plural.

As for Page menu entry, I see actions on a single page only -> singular.
Comment 4 V Stuart Foote 2019-12-09 15:22:32 UTC
In reply to Olivier Hallot from comment #3)
> Contents of the Shape menu entry is a set of commands and actions on one or
> more shapes -> plural.
> 

At the risk of a bit of bikesheding, the change(s) would probably be correct for EN locales. 

+1

Shape --> Shapes
Sheet --> Sheets
Form --> Forms

> As for Page menu entry, I see actions on a single page only -> singular.

Agree, and likewise for View and Window actions are singular--so no change for these and similar.

But expect label changes would cause some L10N translation thrash. Seems worth doing. But please lets get them all at once--not one at a time. Any others that should be changed to plural?
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2019-12-12 13:44:13 UTC
(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #4)
> Shape --> Shapes
> Sheet --> Sheets
> Form --> Forms
> ...
> please lets get them all at once--not one at a time. 

Let's follow the native speaker's suggestion. Implementation should look for other singulars (will be hard to find all, though).
Comment 6 Roman Kuznetsov 2020-01-11 17:58:00 UTC
I wouldn't touch the main menu in this case

Don't think it's very important.

For example, Sheet menu contains "Link to external data"! So it absolutely doesn't matter what's name "Sheet" or "Sheets" for that menu for me, when we have data item inside it >_<

And please think about localization teams. Every time when we change one letter in any word in UI, they should update its translating on many languages

And you, Olivier, should update our Help after these very minor and unnecessary changes

So -1 from me
Comment 8 Sophie Sipasseuth 2023-10-05 08:15:05 UTC
Perhaps, we can close this bug? Indeed, more people disagree with this suggestion than those who agree with it.
Comment 9 Adolfo Jayme Barrientos 2023-10-05 20:16:49 UTC
TBH, I don't think this is a helpful change when balancing the work needed to rework translated strings with accelerators vs. the degree of clarity that it brings (I mean, I believe the strings are clear enough already in this particular case).