Change name of window "Inspector"
Reported version
3.0
Type
Functional
Severity
S4 - Minor
Status
closed
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project
It's just that the name of the window "inspector" doesn't seem very user friendly. I don't know what an unfamiliar user would expect to find when they click on that.
Maybe something like "Advanced Item Properties". It's a long name, but I think it would be ok. That's something that an unfamiliar user would know what to expect when they click on it.
If you think it's too long, maybe an abbreviation "Adv. Item Properties".
Comments
Inspector is quite a standard wording for this type of dialog. Other software like adobe software or sibelius are using the same word for the same kind of dialog. Also "Advanced Item Properties" is too long and 3 words instead of 1. "Adv. Item Properties" makes it even more cryptic and abbreviations are discouraged in most UI guidelines.
If we can't agree that Inspector is good enough, I would propose "Property Inspector".
Can't get my head round getting that properly translated into German. Also I can't think of a better name, although I don't like it much either.
Haven't seen "Inspector" being used in other software myself, but taking your word for it, I'd leave it as is
To me, 'Inspector' suggests information that is read-only (I'm thinking of 'Show Movie Inspector' in QuickTime).
In comparison, I prefer 'Properties'.
I too don't recall having seen "Inspector", and the name in English does imply read-only. It's actually a good name for the window we currently call the "debugger".
"Properties" seems the obvious name for this - nothing "advanced" about. Except that some element types (eg, volta, text) have a separate Properties dialog accessed by context menu. That's kind of unfortunate, really. The distinction between which settings are to be found in which location is not going to obvious no matter what labels we use, I fear. But I guess it's too late to roll volta properties et al into the inspector the way note properties and some others were.
Maybe "Element Properties".
And indeed Inspector implies readonly and reminds more of a debugger. Actually the debugger here at work is called INSPECT.
And why would it be to late to move (or at least copy) other properties across from the context menu to the Inspector?
Actually I'd rather have all properties in the right-click context menu, Inspector is eating my precious screen space...
I started off skeptical of the insepctor concept, but have come to like the idea. If youc an spare the screen space, then it's an enormous time saver to not have toc onstantly right click, click to bring up the dialog, and click again to dismiss it every time you want to change a property. And even if you can't spare the screen space on an ongoing basis, having a single keystroke to bring it up is still a win over the old context menu / dialog process. Especially considering you can leave it up for a little while at least even if you don't leave it up permanently, to make several settings to different element types in one go. So no, I don't want to go back to the old less efficient system.
But moving the more specialized properties (volta, text, etc) into the inspector does make sense. Short term, we could even keep the existing dialogs, just change how you get there - instead of right clicking the volta then selecting "volta properties" from the context men, you'd clickt the volta then press a button in the inspector. Then we could rename the inspector properties and make it the go-to place for all relevant settings. And then maybe add Properties to the context menu and have it simply bring up the main Properties (inspector) window if it isn't up already, so people accustomed to right clicking could still get that behavior.
Eventually, rolling volta properties et al directly into the main Properties windows would be nice, but simply adding a button to bring up the existing Volta Properties dialog seems like the easy solution for now, to me.
See https://www.google.fr/search?q=property+inspector&tbm=isch
And in those search results, I see only one program that just uses the word "Inspector" alone.
And even though the search contains the word "inspector", many of the images don't.
And in any case, my own issue is less about naming than about consistency: the fact that some properties for a given element are accessed one way (via dialog in right click menu) and other properties are accessed a different way (via inspector). Right now, we have "properties" and "inspector" both for the same element - I wonder how many of the programs that use "inspector" make this distinction, and if there is some logical way for the user to guess which settings he will find in which place?
See also #118086: Eliminate most "Properties" dialogs in favor of Inspector for MuseScore 3. I'm good with keeping it as "Inspector," but if we eliminate the right-click "Properties" dialogs, then I guess a rename could happen for MuseScore 3? Marc's idea from comment #6 above is also discussed there.
Since there has been no further discussion, I'm just gonna close this one.
And wow, there was even a "postponed" as a status?