> In menus, the ellipsis character means that the user must provide more information before a command will operate.
More specifically, to the user it means they’ll still have the opportunity to back out of the operation; that it won’t take effect immediately upon clicking the menu item. It allows the user to “explore” the command without committing to its execution yet. For that reason, IMO the ellipses in “Attach Files…” and “Add Link…” are appropriate.
What I’m seeing more often in practice is that menu items that should have an ellipsis don’t. They make you wonder what the immediate effect of the command would possibly be.
Indeed, the ellipsis means some kind of dialog box will open. Regarding the wording "the user must provide more information", that's what that dialog box is for, while also providing a "cancel" option so that as you say, the user can back out. Surely "Attach Files..." brings up a file requestor, so it's exactly the correct use. I can't see why the blogger thinks otherwise.
It's just a small nitpick though. The article generally seems to do a good job of highlighting some frankly shocking (and worrying amateurish) problems in these menus.
More specifically, to the user it means they’ll still have the opportunity to back out of the operation; that it won’t take effect immediately upon clicking the menu item. It allows the user to “explore” the command without committing to its execution yet. For that reason, IMO the ellipses in “Attach Files…” and “Add Link…” are appropriate.
What I’m seeing more often in practice is that menu items that should have an ellipsis don’t. They make you wonder what the immediate effect of the command would possibly be.