A question mostly for the non-computer geeks, about computery things

[drwex]

Let's say that you have a template-like thing (if you use Word or similar you might be familiar with what they call "Template documents"). When you 'open' that thing in fact what happens is you get a copy of the thing. You could open it many times and have lots of copies.

When you make a change to the thing you have open in front of you it ends up that you change just that one. You don't change the original (template) nor do you change any of the other copies you opened. That's good if you just want to make one change, but it's a royal pain in the ass if you want to change the same thing everywhere.

So imagine that I'm going to give you two capabilities, one to save just what you did locally and one to make what you did on this one be a change for all the others. The first one is pretty typically called "Save" or "Apply" and most people seem to be OK with that.

But what would you expect the other one to be called? I can't very well make a button that says "Make this change here and also to all the others" because it's too long and people will laugh at it. I can also thinks of a few techy ways to say it, but mostly what I want is a concise way to express that thought which will make sense to non-computer geeks.

What would you call it?

Comments

[aelf.livejournal.com]

In the cases where I've encountered something similar, I think "global" is the modifier I've seen used.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

This.

Maybe a difference between save local and save global.

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

Yup, this.

Although, Wex, in your post I thought at first that "save" and "apply" were different, and it took me a second read to figure out that they were being used synonymously. So that's also a thought "save this form" vs "apply to template"

[papertigers.livejournal.com]

that's what I thought, too. I think "save" vs. "apply to template" would make the most sense to me.

[c1.livejournal.com]

+1 for global.

Also, in Quark/InDesign, they're called master pages, if that's another helpful descriptor.

Thank you all

[drwex]

I think we're going to try the save/apply thing.

[points.livejournal.com]

I should hook you up with our ID guy - we had this exact self-same issue in our product, and it has gone through numerous iterations over the past two years.

Seems to be a common problem

[drwex]

I didn't find a single solution that was globally accepted.

[ringrose.livejournal.com]

I'd use something like "Update template" or "Update all copies"

Yeah

[drwex]

that's the sense I want, but I needed terse wording.

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

Amend?

Thanks for the input

[drwex]

I think that term might be confusing tho.

[donnad.livejournal.com]

Why not somthing like "save copy" and "save new template" and have it create a new template without destroying the old one.

When I see "save", I assume it will save just that copy as written. To me "apply" means make a change so that the change shows up next time I open a new document.

The term global makes sense to someone fluent in computer terminology, but not the average joe.

That makes sense

[drwex]

Thanks

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

I'd call it a "global" change, but I live with a computer science professor, so my take on the right words might be different than the average not-terribly-technical person's.

Heh

[drwex]

Yes, we all get contaminated to some degree.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

Word in fact has some interesting wording around their styles, which may be useful here.

I think it's an attribute on the style itself, and is called something like "auto-update". Whenever you update the style, it auto-updates everywhere.

Indeed

[drwex]

automatically propagating the change is an option.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

"Change here" vs. "Change everywhere."

Thanks

[drwex]

We may try this one.

[dpolicar]

Were I designing a whole user experience here, I would ensure that each template had a unique name, and the interface used that name throughout (e.g., if I create an instance called bar of template "foo" my instance is conspicuously identified as a foo named "bar") and if I am exposing the propogate-change-to-all-instances-of-this-template global function while the user is working on a foo template instance, the button would read "update all foos". (And would similarly read "update all bazes", etc.)

If I was just naming the function without getting to arrange all of that infrastructure, though, I'd agree with the "global"/"local" distinction suggested above.

Thank you for the response

[drwex]

Unfortunately, naming is out of our control.

Re: Thank you for the response

[dpolicar]

You can imagine my shock.