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"Windows" programs (well, DOS programs with text-style windows) had an ellipsis (...) in their menus (and possibly on buttons). The following is a screenshot of QBasic 1.1 in MS DOS 6.22:

QBasic

The meaning of the ellipsis is: This is not an immediate action, there will be another input required from the user, and thus a new dialog opens.

Was this meaning just a common sense, or did Microsoft (or someone else) have written guidelines for this usability rule? If this was documented, a credible source would be nice.

I am specifically looking for old sources, not the Windows 7 design basics, which still explained it.

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    It seems to have been part of IBM's CUA guidelines which were published in 1987, but I could not find any original source, so I'll leave it at this comment. Commented Feb 27 at 8:58
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    MS used Ellipsis at least since 1985 (Win 1.0), but Apple Lisa had them in 1983. That leaves 2 years of MS-DOS where MS could used ellipsis in TUI tools, but I don't know of any. However I am fairly sure I've seen ellipsis, or something with same meaning, in early graphical Unix-ish systems, so both MS and Apple probably took existing idea. Commented Feb 27 at 9:00
  • @piet.t archive.org/details/ibm-saa-cua-basic-interface-design-guide/… "Ellipses for Pull-Down Choices" Commented Mar 1 at 7:09
  • I'm pretty sure the ellipsis in menus is a standard part of "Character Windows" (CW) / "Character Oriented Windows" (COW), which was a text mode UI library Microsoft used internally for a lot of their later DOS apps – the PWB IDE, QBasic/QuickBasic, Word for DOS... it had an API inspired by Windows but was for text mode apps only. I'm led to believe some people in Microsoft wanted to release it for third party use, but that never happened. Commented Mar 1 at 7:31
  • I completely understand the natural inclination to examine Mac and DOS/Windows operating systems. But it might be interesting to also explore if other platforms were following this convention. For example, did Lisa, Amiga, GEM, Geos, etc follow this same ellipsis pattern? What about the Xerox Parc Alto? (I don't know if it had drop menus and dialogs as we think of them today) - My point is just to explore how 'ingrained' this convention may have already been by the time DOS/Windows adopted it. Commented Mar 1 at 22:56

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This feature is not just a PC thing. For example, Apple Human Interface Guidelines (requires account to borrow and access) published in 1987 also recommends this design. On page 68:

An ellipsis (...) after the menu items means that after the item is chosen, the user will be asked for more information before the operation is carried out.

On the PC side, I believe it's the IBM Common User Access that codified this design. I can't find any archive of the original documentation online, but the Wikipedia article on it seems to support the idea. This will cover the DOS applications.

Menu commands that require parameters to proceed are suffixed with an ellipsis ("…")

For Windows, the earliest document that I can find that mentions it is the Windows 1.03 SDK Application Style Guide. On page 18:

Menu items that need additional information before they can carry out their actions should ... end with an ellipsis (...) and the item, when selected, should display a dialog box.

Which is first taught to the end users by the Windows 3.0 User Guide. On page 28:

An ellipsis (...) after the name: A dialog box will appear when the command is chosen, asking for information the application needs to carry out the command.

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The following is a screenshot of QBasic 1.1 in MS DOS 6.22

That would make time frame for your question 1994 or later, right?

The meaning of the ellipsis is: This is not an immediate action, there will be another input required from the user, and thus a new dialog opens.

Erm, yes, but. Ellipsis stand for continuation. Like when printed on the end of a page to mark continuation on the next For a menu this means that its command isn't executed right away but needs additional input, thus followed by some dialog or other means of further specification.

Was this meaning just a common sense, or did Microsoft (or someone else) have written guidelines for this usability rule?

No need for such as it was standing UI practice by that time - beside being a typographic convention for'continuation' way before any computer use. Not just for Microsoft, which used it at least a decade before, but across the industry since the 1970s.

Of course does Microsoft Windows 3.1/3.11 of that time (1994) use ellipses in menus in a linage going back 9 years prior, 1985, to version 1.x:

Windows 1.03 showing About screen and opened "Special" menue

(Taken from Wikipedia)

It might be important to keep in mind that this is not a Windows only thing, as DOS applications did show ellipsis for continuation as well early on, not just with Microsoft, but all across the industry. Take Turbo Pascal 6.0 of 1990 as an example:

Turbo Pascal 6.0 screen with opened File menue showing several Entrieswith ellipsis

(Taken from Wikipedia)

This example - looking quite like above QuickBasic screen - also shows the strong influence IBM's 1987 CUA had on the PC software, as both are based thereon. Borland further supporting proliferation by makingTurbo Vision available.

Continuing with GUI, before Windows Apples Mac (*1) used it with the very first System 1 of 1984:

Macintosh screen showing the "Apple" Menue opened with "About the Finder..." as first entry

(Image taken from this short video)

Note that the Mac even included a dedicated ellipsis character (X'C9') for this. Of course it 'just' took it from the Lisa before:

enter image description here

(Taken from this Low End Mac article about the Lisa)

Apples development is well known as low effort copy of Xerox' smaltalk based systems, where ellipses can be found all the way back to he very first implementations - like visible on this Smalltalk 74 screen on a Alto (*2):

...

(Tanken from this nice Smalltalk overview at the CHM website)

... this could as well be continued with text UI examples back into mainframe time marking continuation, but I'd think continued usage is already pretty clear.

*1 - Which, without any doubt, had some influence on Windows.

*2 - Not the best example, pictures are hard to find. Not just because of age,but also because Smalltalk isn't as menu heavy as today. No, not booting up any Star right now :)

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    Anecdotally, I was using ellipsis in the 1970s to mean "too much data to display, so truncated at this point". This of course is just its meaning as common punctuation. Commented Feb 27 at 11:20
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    @dave yes, that's the same general idea: continuation not displayed here Commented Feb 27 at 11:34
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    @Raffzahn Not really. A menu item saying "Immediately delete file some-long-name-that-doesnt-fit..." would be a completely different usage of the ellipsis. The software convention of it meaning "some other interaction will follow" doesn't automatically follow from the English usage of meaning "some information is omitted here". Commented Feb 27 at 18:04
  • @IMSoP: from a design perspective, those dots should be in the middle, like so: ux.stackexchange.com/a/30831/39020 Commented Feb 28 at 9:15
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    @ThomasWeller Again, that's a particular design convention; in plain English text, the normal placement of an ellipsis is at the end of the truncated text, indicating only that some information is missing. Commented Feb 28 at 10:57

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