Re: Online Help "Click" vs. "Press"

["Martin, Chuck" <chuckm -at- EVOLVESOFTWARE -dot- COM>]

On Friday, February 06, 1998 12:07 AM, Mary Nurminen
[SMTP:manurmin -at- TRE -dot- TELE -dot- NOKIA -dot- FI] wrote:
<snip>>
> I guess 'click' is a little more exact of a description of what you're
doing.
>
<snip>

Well, technically, not really, as some list denizens have noted. But
this is but one example of educating users about new definitions of
words. In my Java programming class, it would be called "overloading:"
more than one possible meaning depending on the context.

So although some of the screen elements (buttons) look like something
you would "press," all of them respond because a user physically
"clicks" a mouse button (with the note that a minority of users do
perform other physical actions) and a message is send to the computer to
perform an action in the software for the place onscreen directly under
the mouse pointer. Because of this correlation of user action and
software action, the computer industry overloaded the definition of the
word "click" to have it encompass that related action.

"Click" it is then.

--
"You don't look American."
"Everyone looks American, because Americans are from everywhere."

- Doonesbury
Chuck Martin, Technical Writer
Evolve Software                  | Personal
chuckm -at- evolvesoftware -dot- com        | writer -at- best -dot- com
www.evolvesoftware.com           | www.writeforyou.com