Capitalization in User Interface

On this page you find the rules for capitalization in ILIAS for english language variables that are used in the user interface. For translated versions please follow the appropriate rules and conventions in the specific language.

Title Case

Title case means that the first letter of each word is capitalized, except for certain small words, such as articles and short prepositions. Use title case for the following screen elements:

- Menu options and pushbuttons
- Field, checkbox, and radio button labels
- Frame, screen, and dialog box titles
- Tab descriptions
- All hierachy nodes and folder names (roles and so on)
- Possible entries, options in drop-down lists
- Column and row headers
- Titles of reports and lists
- All technical short descriptions (names of programs, function groups, and so on)


Sentence Style

In sentence style, only the first letter of the sentence or phrase is capitalized. All words after that are written in lower case, except for proper nouns.
Use sentence style for the following texts:

- Error messages
- Status messages
- Complete sentences and questions on the user interface (such as Do you want to save? or All unsaved data will be lost.)

Capitalize...

- Nouns
- Verbs (including is and other forms of be)
- Participles
- Adverbs (including than and when)
- Adjectives (including this, that, and each)
- Pronouns (including its)
- Subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that)
- Prepositions and conjunctions with five or more letters (between, without, during, about, because, through).
- Remark: Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) rule is not to capitalize any prepositions.
- First and last words, no matter what part of speech they are
- Prepositions that are part of a verb phrase (Logging On, Setting Up)
- Both elements of hyphenated words (How-To, Country-Specific).
- Remark: This rule differs slightly to the CMS rule but is more appropriate for our documentation and user interfaces.
- Words and phrases in parentheses as you would capitalize them if they did not appear in parentheses
- Any words, phrases, fragments, or sentences after a colon or semicolon

Do Not Capitalize ...

- Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for)
- Prepositions of four or fewer letters (with, to, for, at, and so on)
- Articles (a, an, the, some) unless the article is the first or last word in the title
- The word to in an infinitive phrase
- Case-specific product names, words, or phrases (ILIAS open source, README file, e-Business, and so on)