Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wang!bu-tyng!three!cory
From: cory@three.MV.COM (Cory Kempf)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: System 7 talk: Hierarchial Apple Menus
Message-ID: <372@three.MV.COM>
Date: 15 Jun 90 02:40:10 GMT
References: <68207@cc.utah.edu> <8655@goofy.Apple.COM>
Organization: Three Letter Co. Nashua, NH.
Lines: 47

lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) writes:
>In article <68207@cc.utah.edu> TJACOBS@cc.utah.edu writes:

>> The Apple menu is becoming a control center for the whole Mac

>If this was true, then adding hierarchical menus to the Apple menu would 
>be the right idea.  But I don't think this is true.  

Unfortunately, from what I have seen, both here and on Applelink,
the users (yes, I admit that they are engineering users) seem to 
disagree.
>							The Apple menu isn't 
>intended to be the Macintosh control center.  That's the Finder's job.  
>The Apple menu is a simply short cut for accessing a few icons.  

Since when has Apple decided that there shall only be one way to do 
something?  What ever happened to the idea of customization?  Like letting
the USER (you remember users, don't you? -- the ones who BUY Macs) choose?

The alternative (for reasonably quick access) is to clutter up the desktop
with a herd of aliases.  Not the best of alternatives. 

>I agree that putting 40 things in the Apple menu isn't a good idea.  But I 
>don't think there is any reasonable way to access 40 items from a single 
>menu.  

Unfortunately, you have the problem that control pannels and desk accessories
(in general) belong in the Apple menu.  If for no other reason that they
have been there since the dawn of time (or at least since the Mac was invented).

A typical control pannel contains about 10-15 items.  The typical user (at
least the ones that I have seen) have about 10 DAs that they can't live
without.  Now, the normal Mac users uses about 5-10 applications regularly.
(word processor, drawing/painting program or two, page layout application,
spreadsheet, 2-5 games, Hypercard, and an application specific program (comm
program, a database, a scanner package, a flowcharting program, etc)).  The
user, upon learning that they can put an alias of these programs into the 
Apple menu, will most likely proceed to do so for most of his or her working
set.  By my count, we have a conservative 25 entries...  Power users will, of
course, have more, as will graphic arts people, engineers, and people with
multiple work contexts.

+C
-- 
Cory Kempf				I do speak for the company (sometimes).
Three Letter Company						603 883 2474
email: cory@three.mv.com, harvard!zinn!three!cory