The Dots as “action overflow” buttons in Android’s “action bar” and Material Design’s “app bar” Usability Take this selection of screenshots from LinkedIn where they show up in every possible nook and cranny. So many that sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming. So there are a number of ways The Dots are used in software UIs. In fact, in addition to The Dots appearing within menus, this use of them to launch menus has become so prevalent across both apps and the web that Google and Microsoft have included it as a core UI pattern in their documentation. This default behavior is still present in the SDK, and the results can still be seen in many apps that use the native UITabBar, including the iTunes Store app. If there were six items, the fifth and sixth would be grouped under the “More” button. There’s a reason this pattern was found in so many early iPhone apps: When building an app using the Apple SKD, it would show up automatically any time your tab bar included more than five items. The first time I remember seeing them used this way was in iOS 1 for iPhone, specifically, as part of the “UITabBar” element (that big bar of icons at the bottom of the screen). The Dots can also be found in a standalone context, where interacting with them will display an entire menu. The iOS SDK automatically generates a “More” button when needed Unless the ghost text ends with a question mark, end with an ellipsis. Use an ellipsis in ghost text to indicate that users can take action. In fact, Salesforce recommends using The Dots for all prompts where a user might enter text: Like Medium, many sites and apps use The Dots in places where the user is being asked to enter text, such as a comment or status update, or a search term. Consequently, any command button whose implicit verb is to “show another window” doesn’t take an ellipsis, such as with the commands About, Advanced, Help (or any other command linking to a Help topic), Options, Properties, or Settings.” Text entry prompts “This doesn’t mean you should use an ellipsis whenever an action displays another window - only when additional information is required to perform the action. This approach eliminates screen clutter in situations where ellipses have little value.” Commands that show other windows aren’t incomplete - they must display another window and additional information isn’t needed to perform their action. “Generally, ellipses are used in user interfaces to indicate incompleteness. Indicate a command that needs additional information (including confirmation) by adding an ellipsis at the end of the button label. “While command buttons are used for immediate actions, more information might be needed to perform the action. Microsoft has quite a bit to say about this usage as well (see here, here, and here): The ellipsis character (…) means a dialog or separate window will open and prompt the user for additional information or to make a choice.” “Use an ellipsis whenever choosing a menu item requires additional input from the user. We will put it by, that when he comes again…But it may be months, perhaps, before THAT happens.” - Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility ( source) Medium’s 2020 branding “We have never finished Hamlet, Marianne our dear Willoughby went away before we could get through it. One of the earliest notable uses of the ellipsis in writing appears in Jane Austin’s 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility, where it represents a trailing off in speech : “Depending on their context and placement in a sentence, ellipses can indicate an unfinished thought, a leading statement, a slight pause, an echoing voice, or a nervous or awkward silence.” - Wikipedia Wikipedia expounds on literary uses, stating: There’s even a property built into CSS that will automatically display an ellipsis (Unicode U+2026) when text overflows its allotted uncate īut it’s not just for text truncation. You’ll see this everywhere from your computer’s OS to bits of text followed by “read more” affordance. In software design it can be used the same way, indicating that a file name or body of text has been truncated. Unicode includes 8 variations on the ellipsis character (source: compart)
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