String names, naming conventions

Mongoose uses these naming conventions for translatable string objects:

String names that begin with the letter: Are used for this purpose:
s Primarily for Static components and component captions (labels). When in doubt, use this prefix.
f Form captions. These strings appear in the title bar of forms in the Classic view and in the form tab in the Tabbed UI view.
m Message strings. These strings to form and display user messages, for errors, for successful operation, etc. These strings can contain substitution markers.
h Help strings. These strings do not apply to the online help, but rather to the popup help tips that you see when the mouse hovers over a component or toolbar icon.
p Property name strings. These string names are primarily intended for substitution in message strings via the %p syntax in the message. However, they can also be used as captions on form components.
o Object property name strings.  
String names that end with the suffix: Are used for this purpose:
_SINGULAR Form captions and Object property name strings only. These strings are optional singular versions of each plural string specified in any of these fields:
  • IDO Collection's Label String ID
  • Form Collection's Collection Name
  • Form's Caption

For example, if a string oChildren is created, whose string in the current user's language is Children, you can also create a new string called oChildren_SINGULAR, whose string in the current user's language is Child. If oChildren is used as a collection or form caption for a message or the status line, when the system needs to display a singular version for a user, the value Child is used.

Note: There is no need to explicitly specify a suffixed string name, for example, oChildren_SINGULAR, in the IDO or Forms metadata. Rather, its name is inferred from any of the collection or form metadata fields specified above.

Use of this suffix overrides the former behavior of automatically removing a trailing “s” and reduces errors and strange results in translating singular and plural collection captions.

We recommend using these same naming conventions when creating your own captions, message strings, etc.