> The ellipsis hints that this button opens a dialog, instead of immediately executing an action.
That's not exactly what the ellipsis is intended to communicate.
Have you ever wondered why File/Open... has the ellipsis, but in a properly designed app, Help/About does not have it? Even though Help/About opens a dialog too?
The distinction is that the ellipsis indicates that a command will take some action after further user input. The user input may be anything like text entry, selecting from a list, or just a Yes/No or OK/Cancel confirmation. But the key point is that the command will do something after that user input (unless the user cancels).
An About box should not take any action or cause any change to the state of your document or system. It's just information displayed that the user can dismiss with the OK button or close icon. So it doesn't get the ellipsis.
Search for "ellipsis" or go to pages 91-95 of the PDF (labeled as pages 67-71), in particular:
> The ellipsis character doesn’t simply mean that a dialog box or window will appear. For example in the Finder File menu, the Get Info command doesn’t have an ellipsis character and shouldn’t. When you select a Finder object and choose Get Info, a window appears displaying information about the object. The window appearing simply completes the command. The command doesn’t require additional input from the user before it executes.
Also in the Windows 95 Interface Guidelines (PDF):
Again search for "ellipsis" or go to page 109 of the PDF (labeled along with several other pages as page 143):
> If you provide access to copyright and version information for your application, include an About application name command on this menu. When the user chooses this command, display a window containing the application's name, version number, copyright information, and any other informational properties related to the application. Display this information in a dialog box or alternatively as a copyright page of the property sheet of the application's main executable (.EXE) file. Do not use an ellipsis at the end of this command because the resulting window does not require the user to provide any further parameters.
According to Apple HIG plain confirmations did not require an ellipsis:
"Don’t use an ellipsis character if the command displays an alert box to warn the user of a potentially dangerous action, especially if the command displays an alert box only sometimes. In this case you are simply giving the user an
opportunity to cancel a potentially dangerous action (such as causing a loss of data), not asking for more information."
That's not exactly what the ellipsis is intended to communicate.
Have you ever wondered why File/Open... has the ellipsis, but in a properly designed app, Help/About does not have it? Even though Help/About opens a dialog too?
The distinction is that the ellipsis indicates that a command will take some action after further user input. The user input may be anything like text entry, selecting from a list, or just a Yes/No or OK/Cancel confirmation. But the key point is that the command will do something after that user input (unless the user cancels).
An About box should not take any action or cause any change to the state of your document or system. It's just information displayed that the user can dismiss with the OK button or close icon. So it doesn't get the ellipsis.