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Subject:Re. Names on marquees From:Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Thu, 31 Aug 1995 12:44:27 LCL
Sue Gallagher asks about the term "marquee" and
whether or not it's accepted jargon; she notes
that the term isn't used in Photoshop or Painter,
but is used on the Mac and in Corel.
"Marquee" is a familiar term in some contexts; on
the Mac, the "virtual" marquee actually looks like
a physical marquee, with the edges of the box
resembling moving lights (I've seen the border
called "marching ants" for the same reason), but I
doubt that the appearance is the same everywhere.
For example, Photoshop and Painter use the term
"mask" instead, because you're rarely using a
rectangular selection in these programs.
I find "selection rectangle" (for rectangular
selections) or "selection indicator" (for
irregular or non-rectangular shapes) to be better
because they're more descriptive, more contextual
(they resemble the visual appearance of the
selection) and are less likely to need definition.
"Marquee" isn't universal, and besides, I suspect
many readers won't know what the heck a marquee is
anyway.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of
our reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.
