Vscode: Terminology - Zen Mode

Created on 22 Dec 2019 · 8Comments · Source: microsoft/vscode

The goal of this Github issue is to have a conversation about the term "Zen" used in "Zen Mode".

As software professionals we love expressing our creativity and we love connecting to our users even at a personal level. I find it fun to introduce cool terms and icons into my software but this term could possibly be misconstrued.

Could we as a community decide on if this is the best term? Here are a few suggestions to get discussion going.

Focused Mode
Distraction Free Mode (taken from the explanation https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/tips-and-tricks)

*out-of-scope feature-request workbench-zen

Source

Jojoshua

👎4

Most helpful comment

3k891b

brlebtag on 22 Dec 2019

😄5 👍3

All 8 comments

Yeah I feel offended too by "Zen Mode". I hope they fix it as fast they fixed https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268. Please remove it immediately and make it your top priority. To me this is almost equally offensive as a swastika.

brlebtag on 22 Dec 2019

👍7

MS need to go back on their 'one person being offended' statement and change to a more reasonable and balanced approach. If that doesn't happen then VS Code is done for.

All this is a disaster for MS, but they brought it on themselves by politicizing their software. Society is split on these bigger issues, MS can't have their cake and eat it.

David-Else on 22 Dec 2019

3k891b

brlebtag on 22 Dec 2019

😄5 👍3

I'm very concerned about all this.

alexandernst on 23 Dec 2019

The terminology for "Zen Mode" is a good issue, and we're open to change this based on feedback to improve the product. The challenge we have with this issue is that it combines two topics, settings icon debate and zen mode, which makes it hard to have a single conversation about "Zen Mode".

I would like to suggest that you please update the issue to focus on Zen mode with concrete proposals.

chrisdias on 23 Dec 2019

You're right @chrisdias . There was too much in the original issue and I've updated it.

Jojoshua on 23 Dec 2019

👍1

Assigning to @isidorn he has investigated into the 'zen mode' terminology in the past.

egamma on 15 Jan 2020

@Jojoshua Thanks a lot for your feedback. We have considered different naming in the past like Focused Mode and Distraction Free Mode. However we have settled on Zen Mode since the Ctrl K, Ctrl Z keybinding was free and Z for Zen was very distuingishable. In the mean time this name has caught on and the users have tied the keybinding to their muscle memory.
Thus I would not change this name at the moment. However leaving this open as we might reconsider in the future.

Thanks a lot