Shaun McCance
shaunm@gnome.org 2007-2009
Mark up the human-readable name of an application or window.

# Application Names

    mal_inline_app = element app {
      mal_attr_link ?,
      attribute style { xsd:NMTOKENS } ?,
      attribute * - (mal:* | local:*) { text } *,

      mal_inline
    }

Use the `app` element to mark up the human-readable name of an application or the title of a window within an application. Do not use the `app` element to mark up the command used to run an application; use `cmd` for this purpose instead.

# Notes

The `app` element can contain a mixture of text and any general inline elements.

The `app` element can occur in any general inline context, including inside most inline elements, some basic block elements, and certain informational elements.

The `app` element can link to other pages or documents. See for more information.

The `style` attribute takes a space-separated list of style hints. Processing tools should adjust their behavior according to those style hints they understand.

The `app` element can have attributes from external namespaces. See for more information on external-namespace attributes.

# Examples

Use `app` to mark up the name of an application:

To start <app>Totem Movie Player</app>, enter <cmd>totem</cmd> at the command line.

To start Totem Movie Player, enter totem at the command line.

Use `app` to refer to a window:

Use the <app>Theme Preferences</app> window to adjust the look of your desktop.

Use the Theme Preferences window to adjust the look of your desktop.

# Processing Expectations

Application names are usually nouns, and are often common words or phrases that are indicative of their functionality. Frequently, they are simply the name of what the application is. In English and many other languages, the use of an application name in a sentence may sound like the author has simply mistakenly omitted an article, if the application name is not understood to be a title.

For example, the calculator application that comes with Gnome is called Calculator. If an author were to write “To start Calculator…”, then a reader may confuse this for “To start the calculator…” with an error. This is even more pronounced in languages such as German where nouns are always capitalized.

For this reason, it is recommended that application names marked with the `app` element are rendered in italics or using some other font variation.

# Comparison to Other Formats

The `app` element is similar to the `application` element in DocBook.