Check-In User of a Folder

Pham Huu Phuoc (asker) Aug 6, 2009:

Thank you very much I would like to say "thank you" to all of you-Tony M, Jack Doughty and Peter Moor for very useful opinions. Phuoc_vietnam

Peter Moor Aug 4, 2009:

File security Having been in network management for more than a decade-and-a-half, I am quite confident that this has to do with file security. Often web applications and web "lingo" gets abbreviated down to the point that it stops making sense (to those who have to use it!) Anyway, the system has to know when someone is using a file (i.e. when it is in use), and when they stop using it (available for someone else.) Long story short, when the app is using a database that it needs to update, it needs to know who is allowed to update. Otherwise it gets confused.
So, if I need to "define" the expression, it would be "Check-in user" and "Check-out user" and it would be placed when someone enters a [certain part of] an application that makes use of a certain secure file.

Hope this helps...

Jack Doughty Aug 4, 2009:

If verb, better without hyphen I also think it is probably a verb, but if it is checking a user in or out, "Check in" and Check out" would be better English and less confusing. But who knows whether it conforms to my idea of good English or not?

Tony M Aug 4, 2009:

Verb Personally, my instinctive reading was that it is being used as a verb, an instruction to 'check-in a person who is using a folder' — looks like the label on a button etc. We would usually label a button with a verb, for example, 'Delete' or 'Edit' (rather than, say 'deletion' or 'editing').

However, that said, it's hard to be 100% sure without understanding a lot more about what this software does and how it works.

Check-in is of course what people do at a hotel reception desk etc. — this might just be some kind of user log-in or authentication process...