The term Toobar refers to two different UI objects

[q]

 
The User Manual is ambiguous when using the term Toolbar. "Toolbar" is used to refer to two distinct UI objects.

The Toolbar is first mentioned on page 21 of the User Manual (2009 v3.2). At the third mention it is referred to as "Score window's toolbar". Subsequently it is usually referred to simply as the Toolbar. On page 34 and afterwords we see it intermittantly called:


the Toolbar of the Score window
the Score window's toolbar
Ironically, on page 62, in a section entitled The Window Header Toolbar it is simply called Toolbar. (The section title would lead one to assume that The Window Header Toolbar is the official name for the thing, but this name is used nowhere else in the User Manual.

Page 94 covers Setup Toolbar Mode, which describes the floating, customizable Toolbar... which of course is something new, and not the Toolbar discussed in the previous 73 pages.

Page 150 says the Toolbar [is] a floating window. (To those following along, this is a reference to the floating, customizable Toolbar.)

Then there are the entries on pages 156/215:


Customizable Toolbar


Encore features a floating, customizable Toolbar. This Toolbar contains icons that represent commonly used Encore commands. (All of the icons and their related functions are shown at the end of this manual on the pages entitled Toolbar Icons.) Rules about selection and cursor placement still apply; the toolbar simply provides a convenient shortcut. The Toolbar is a floating window so it is affected by the Hide/Show Floating Windows command in the View menu.

Customizing the Toolbar

The Toolbar contains a few icons by default, but it is fully configurable. You can choose the icons and the order in which they appear. This is accomplished with the Toolbar Setup item in the preferences menu. For more info see Toolbar Setup.
The next mention of the term refers to the Score window's toolbar ...

This is pretty sloppy stuff.

The names Score Toolbar and Floating Toolbar would suffice to differentiate. Let's pick some intelligent names and stick with them.

[Denkster]

You are SOOOO right!
Thank you for taking the trouble describing this annoyance.

I suggest we reserve the name 'Toolbar' for the floating, customizable Toolbar.
And we can use the name Action Bar for the bar with the arrow, pencil, eraser, zoom, play, stop, record, pause, MIDI-stop-all-notes, because these items all define real time actions.

Everybody happy?

kind regards
Eveline

[Rob M.]

I suggest we reserve the name 'Toolbar' for the floating, customizable Toolbar.
And we can use the name Action Bar for the bar with the arrow, pencil, eraser, zoom, play, stop, record, pause, MIDI-stop-all-notes, because these items all define real time actions.

"Toolbar" all by itself leaves me a little bit concerned -- it may invite confusion with the fixed toolbar that is a part of so many other Windows programs, i.e, a user may mistakenly apply that name to what Eveline has referred to as the "Action Bar".

Then there is the Tools palette. Some will confuse the unspecified term "Toolbar" with the Tools palette.

My suggestion:

The floating toolbar is a restatement of the Menu bar and its included drop-down menus. It's a convenient way to get quickly to submenu items that are often used but can involve multiple mouseclicks because they are more than one level down in the Menu bar. So why not call the floating toolbar the "Menu Toolbar" -- thus differentiating it from both the Tools Palette and the Action Toolbar?

Regardless of what it's called, we do need a clear and consistent differentiation of the floating toolbar from other items in the Manual.

[Doug Kerr]

Whereas the term Foobar refers to quite a few.

Doug