Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!unmvax!sci.ccny.cuny.edu!rpi!uupsi!pbs!IDA.ORG!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!mephisto!udel!burdvax!dave
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: System 7 talk: Hierarchial Apple Menus
Message-ID: <14112@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM>
From: dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek)
Date: 13 Jun 90 16:11:20 GMT
Sender: news@PRC.Unisys.COM
References: <68207@cc.utah.edu> <41795@apple.Apple.COM>
Organization: Unisys Corporation, Paoli Research Center; Paoli, PA
Lines: 43

In article <41795@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (That's MR. Idiot to you) writes:

[omitted stuff...]

>Hiermenus are ugly. The Apple menu shouldn't -- by default -- support them.

[omitted stuff...]

>You don't turn them on with a silly checkbox somewhere, though. You turn
>them on by creating a sub-folder in the apple folder and sticking stuff in
>it. The name of the sub-folder is the menu-item that roots the hierarchical
>menu, and the stuff in the folder is on the menu. Then you make sure you
>only allow one level of hierarchical menu to keep people honest. 

[omitted stuff...]

Generally I agree, but I suspect you haven't thought this through.

Personally, I'd like to have hierarchical menus, and it would be great
to have them automatically reconfigured every time I moved stuff in
and out of folders, or renamed folders.

But how do you "only allow one level of hierarchical menu"?  Do you
disallow folders from being nested more than one deep?  Or if not,
what do you do when they are more deeply nested?

Your basic suggestion sounds very good.  The test is whether a way can
be found to make this work reasonably in *every* case and still
convince the user that its behaviour is obvious and intuitive.
It's easy to make an interface that behaves well in the most common
cases; but to integrate all the aspects, and to have it behave
intuitively through-and-through -- that's hard.

As I say, the basic idea is a good one.  I hope you are sufficiently
supportive of it to try to work out the details, and -- if they can be
worked out well -- to try to convince Apple to adopt it.



-- Dave Matuszek (dave@prc.unisys.com)
-- Unisys Corp. / Paoli Research Center / PO Box 517 / Paoli PA  19301
-- Any resemblance between my opinions and those of my employer is improbable.
< You can put a mouse on an IBM.  And you can put a radio on a motorcycle. >