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From: brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: System 7 talk: Hierarchial Apple Menus
Message-ID: <3910@moondance.cs.uq.oz.au>
Date: 12 Jun 90 05:09:56 GMT
References: <68207@cc.utah.edu>
Sender: news@moondance.cs.uq.oz.au
Reply-To: brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au
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TJACOBS@cc.utah.edu writes:

>Hierarchial Apple Menus - In System 7 they have made the Apple menu
>configurable by having a special folder in the system folder called the
>"Apple Menu Folder". You can put DA's, applications, folders, control panel
>objects, and aliases. If you alias a folder it opens up the folder upon select-
>ion. 

>What I proposed to Apple is that the user be allowed to configure each folder
>that appears in the Apple Menu to appear either as a folder or as a hierarchial
>menu that pops out to show the contents of the folder. Just like HierDA/damenuz
>does. There are GOOD reasons for doing both.

>I would like to see my Apple Menu look like this:

>-----------------
>About Macintosh  |
>Set aside Finder |
>Set aside Others |
>-----------------
>Finder           |
>TelnetNCSA       |
>Word             |
>----------------- ------------
>Applications >>>>| Word       |
>Controls >       | Claris CAD |
>DA's >           | Excel      |
>Choose >         | Filemaker  |
>Quickmail        | MacProject |
>Vantage          | NCSAtelnet |
>MultiClip        | Stuffit    |
>General Controls | -----------
>My Work Folder   |
>-----------------

I use Suns all day long and the hierarchical menus are nice for
ensuring things are easy to find, but I find it very difficult to
control the selection mechaonism. I'm no quadraplegic so I reckon that
these things are hard to control. 

The Mac already has an hierarchical menu structure, it reads left to
right accross the top of the screen. Why not use it instead? Allow
users to have more than one `constant' menu. The above menu hierarchy
would then appear

|AppleMenu |Applications |Controls |DA's |Choose |
|-----------------|
|About Macintosh  |
|Set aside Finder |
|Set aside Others |
|-----------------|
|Finder           |
|TelnetNCSA       |
|Word             |
|-----------------|
|Quickmail        |
|Vantage          |
|MultiClip        |
|General Controls |
|My Work Folder   |
 -----------------

Each of the menus could be constructed by placing a folder in the
system folder.

There are a lot of related issues that would need addressing such as
aliasing and linking, rapid search for applications etc.
--
Brendan Mahony                   | brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz       |
Department of Computer Science   |
University of Queensland         |
Australia                        |