Timeline for Safer alternative to “opaque”?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
27 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 31, 2015 at 14:01 | comment | added | Brian Hitchcock | If Photoshop wanted to describe controlling visibility or invisibility of an underlying object, they could have used those words. If people have a hard time with degrees of invisibility, Photoshop could have called it "hidden" or "hiding factor". But by taking "opaque", which was previously not considered to come in degrees, and turning it into "opacity", which ranges down to zero, has, as the questioner suggested, destroyed the original sense of the word. | |
| Jan 31, 2015 at 2:03 | comment | added | nitro2k01 | @fredsbend My point is that it probably makes more intuitive sense to control how "visible" the layer is over how "invisible" it is. Therefore, Adobe elected to let you control the opacity rather than the translucence. What I mean by inverting the scale, is that if you were controlling translucence rather than opacity, you would either have to place the control slider to the left to turn the layer ON, or accept that 100% translucence is on the left side of the slider element. | |
| Jan 31, 2015 at 0:29 | vote | accept | Spiff | ||
| Jan 30, 2015 at 17:01 | comment | added | user39425 | @nitro2k01 I don't see why. "100% translucence" means transparent. What else might one think? | |
| Jan 30, 2015 at 13:46 | answer | added | Harshan01 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jan 30, 2015 at 13:08 | answer | added | user1306322 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jan 30, 2015 at 12:13 | comment | added | nitro2k01 | @fredsbend But then you would have to invert the scale so that "100% translucent" would mean fully transparent. This may go against people's intuition. | |
| Jan 30, 2015 at 9:59 | comment | added | Angew is no longer proud of SO | "Alpha 1". Of course, this will only make sense to computer graphics folks, who (should) know the proper meaning of opaque anyway. | |
| Jan 30, 2015 at 6:48 | comment | added | user39425 | I blame programs like Photoshop using words like "opacity" instead of "translucence". | |
| Jan 30, 2015 at 3:01 | answer | added | ermanen | timeline score: 3 | |
| Jan 30, 2015 at 2:13 | comment | added | Martin Krzywinski | Given the existing confusion between opaque and translucent, it's unlikely than any single word will be understood more accurately. I'm afraid you'll have to swallow your inner pedant and use "totally opaque", or some such modifier. | |
| Jan 30, 2015 at 1:38 | answer | added | Erich | timeline score: 1 | |
| S Jan 30, 2015 at 0:40 | history | suggested | Lightness Races in Orbit | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Speaking of misuse...!
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| Jan 30, 2015 at 0:19 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jan 30, 2015 at 0:40 | |||||
| Jan 29, 2015 at 23:30 | comment | added | Hot Licks | How about "attenuates transmission of electromagnetic radiation in the visible light range by a factor of 100 dB or greater". | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 23:21 | comment | added | ScotM | It turns out the impenetrable by light distinction is the consequence of a specialized technical definition in physics. See physics.stackexchange.com/questions/145333/… It is probably safe to assume that the more educated an audience is, the more likely they are to understand the distinction intuitively. | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 23:16 | answer | added | owais iqbal | timeline score: -3 | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 23:11 | comment | added | ScotM | Observant, @HotLicks, but I prefer totally opaque :-) or better yet absolutely opaque. The physics exchange may have a technical term. | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 22:04 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackEnglish/status/560921550741057537 | ||
| Jan 29, 2015 at 21:12 | answer | added | WS2 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 20:35 | comment | added | Hot Licks | @ScotM - So how about "obfuscated"? | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 20:04 | answer | added | DJ Far | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 19:16 | answer | added | Centaurus | timeline score: 15 | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 19:03 | answer | added | user66974 | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 18:43 | comment | added | Jim | just use opaque (because it is the right word) but back it up somewhere else in the literature with 100% light-blocking or something similar. | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 18:43 | comment | added | ScotM | Even thesaurs.com obfuscates the distinction, thesaurus.com/browse/opaque?s=t, but it really is an artificial distinction according to the etymology etymonline.com/index.php?term=opaque&allowed_in_frame=0 | |
| Jan 29, 2015 at 18:32 | history | asked | Spiff | CC BY-SA 3.0 |