[TxMt] Zap gremlins

Allan Odgaard throw-away-1 at macromates.com
Tue Mar 21 02:40:02 UTC 2006


On 21/3/2006, at 2:57, Trevor Harmon wrote:

> [...] I think they should be shorter. For instance, is having "in  
> Document" as part of the name really necessary?

It is, yes. Because if you have a selection, it is “Remove  
Unprintable Characters in Selection”.

> Another example: "Convert Spaces to Tabs (Estimating Indent)"
> That's quite a mouthful. Why not just "Entab"?

Because personally I had no idea what Entab or Zap Gremlens meant,  
before BBEdit users told me (and I would think Entab would be to add  
one tab, e.g. increase indent).

The goal with TextMate’s menu labeling is not verbosity, but it is  
non-ambiguity. There is a lot of commands, so it is a priority that  
the names spell out what the commands do. And if you try to rename  
all the commands to shorter names, I think you will find this may  
work for only very few of them, causing asymmetry in the naming system.






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