Re: Proposal to improve the nomenclature of scrolling directions

[Dani Moncayo]

On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> wrote:
>> (a) They are ambiguous: here we are talking about _vertical_
>> scrolling, and "forward"/"backward" could refer to horizontal
>> scrolling too.
>
> We could fix that by explicitly mentioning it's vertical scrolling.

Yes, but I guess we all agree that "up" is a cleaner, shorter and thus
better name than "vertical backward".

>> (b) They take the opposite criterion: while "up"/"down" refer to the
>> movement of the text (relative to the window), "forward"/"backward"
>> refer to the movement of the window (relative to the text).  So we end
>> up with a confusing mix of criteria.
>
> That's also a problem in your proposal.

I don't think so: my proposal implies to use a single criterion: the
standard one that describes the movement of the window (view port),
relative to the text.

>> 1.  Rename the command `scroll-up' to `scroll-window-down' (an
>
> While you can argue it's less ambiguous, you have to think about it
> to remove the various ambiguities (e.g. you have think about it before
> determining that it probably doesn't mean "scroll-window- as opposed to
> scroll-frame-").

Mmmm, well, then maybe "scroll-view-" would be even better than
"scroll-window-".

> The up/down terminology is just to be avoided, I think.  Much clearer is
> terminology that refers to the beginning/end of the text.

I disagree: IMHO, the words that best describe the direction of a
_vertical_ movement are precisely "up" and "down", and are they are
used elsewhere for this very purpose.

-- 
Dani Moncayo