The "File" menu isn't about files

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• Hacker News
• Any imports and exports are going to involve external files in almost every case. This is an attention grabbing headline that ignores the value of semantic consistency across applications. Everyone understands that the File menu is about doing things that will entail interactions with the underlying file system and that it's not real until you save it. We're not better off by putting these more or less similar functions under menus titled 'Picture', 'Document', 'Project', 'Song' etc.
  by anigbrowl
• Great satire, but how are you going to prevent some UX person at Apple from thinking this is good idea?
  by archonis
• It's a real Chesterton's fence situation. There's a lot of latent information contained in a tradition of calling the first menu item "File" including expectations around what can be found there.

  You could also say it pierced the metaphor and no longer refers to files on a computer, but to the concept of filing that computer files were named after.

  by quirkot
• I understand the complaint but a lot of these suggested improvements aren't great either, especially the ones that are close to the name of the app and so would be right next to the app name which is itself a menu header. "Password" right next to "1Password" and "Automation" right next to "Automator" would drive me batty.

  Maybe the real fix is to consider if you need a File menu at all, and whether most of what has been shoved in there should go under the app name menu bar item instead.

  by Analemma_
• It's an interesting point, but I think the benefit of having actions related to the main object(s) that each application deals with in a standardized place that people expect ("File") outweighs the cognitive load of needing to figure out where those actions might be in every single program.
  by keito
• - Notes: note

  - Messages: message

  - Passwords: password

  - Reminders: reminder

  [...]

  Most of propositions are restatement of the app name or theme thereof, and thus do not seem to be very helpful (everything in a notes app has to do with "notes" one way or another). Plus, having naming conventions change per app is confusing. The "file" menu is usually about "(primary) actions" and "I/O", so I would rename all of this as "actions". However, "file menu" has been associated with these kind of actions, and it is fair to consider a liberal interpretation of the word broadly referring to organisation of data (wherever this lies) and creation of new data structures within the app (not just filesystem level).

  by freehorse
• That's how language works. Eavesdropping once referred to water dropping off the eaves of a roof. There is mostly no "log" that "logging in" writes to. The menu itself has nothing to do with food or eating. Is the meaning clear to contemporary readers or listeners? Yes.
  by yodon
• Contrapoint: your application isn't special enough to break patterns.

  Opening a calendar application, clicking on the "Event" menu, and being given options to make a new calendar makes as much sense as opening the "File" menu and seeing the same options.

  If you split it up so any menu item that verbs a noun, had a top level menu named by that noun, you'd end up with New/Delete/etc actions being split into many menus, which feels just as wrong.

  "File" works because of inertia, and people have a feeling of what should be in there:

      - new thing
      - save thing
      - copy thing
      - open another thing
      - rename thing
      - send this thing somewhere
      - import a thing in another format/export thing in another format
      - close thing, but don't quit, send me to some start screen please
  

  It's vaguely related to the file/container you're looking at, but I wouldn't even say that's hugely important to most people's use of the file menu. It just has to have those things in it because honestly, it's pretty consistent. Other than a few examples in the article (Find My with it's always-disabled options, Reeder clearly having already moved all of it's menus into Account/Subscription/Item nouns) the file menu lines up with what I expect to be in it. Maybe that's me stuck inside my own bubble?
  by graypegg