Edmond Ng ([email protected]) wrote
> Just wondering any of you might have noticed the following
> "misnomer" in Stata 7.0. When I click on the [Begin Log] button in the
> menu bar to open an existing log file, a dialog box comes up for the
> user to choose a file to be opened. Rather confusingl y, the button
> that is meant for opening the selected log file says [Save] instead of
> open. It is fine for me because I see the connection for calling it
> "Save" but it is not obvious to students who are learning the software
> for the first time.
The button Edmond is speaking about is in the file chooser dialog
presented when a user wants to open a new log, or open an existing
log (and possibly append to it).
Windows allows us (the developers of Stata) to present one of two
dialogs for choosing a file--an Open dialog or a Save dialog.
The Open dialog is to be used when merely opening a file to
look at it. When a user opens a log file, however, the file
is always opened for writing, not merely for reading. In the
case of an existing log file, the user must be prompted whether
they wish to overwrite the existing file or append to it. In
the case of a new log file, it must be created, and the user
is most certainly going to be writing to it.
If a file is going to be created, overwritten, or appended to,
the appropriate dialog to use is a "Save" dialog. Users expect
an "Open" dialog to be safe and to not have the potential to
change their file on disk. A "Save" dialog lets them know that
they are about to create a new file or change an existing file.
--Alan
([email protected])
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
