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From: jwhitnel@csi.UUCP (Jerry Whitnell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Pull down menus.
Message-ID: <1450@csib.csi.UUCP>
Date: 11 Mar 88 17:43:42 GMT
References: <4129@hoptoad.uucp> <283@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu> <1710@ssc-vax.UUCP> <3996@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> <730@nuchat.UUCP> <8332@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> <1170@cpocd2.UUCP>
Reply-To: jwhitnel@csib.UUCP (Jerry Whitnell)
Organization: Communications Solutions Inc., San Jose, Ca
Lines: 55

In article <1170@cpocd2.UUCP> howard@cpocd2.UUCP (Howard A. Landman) writes:
|In article <8332@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> ack@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Andy J. Williams) writes:
|>I think that
|>having a centralized, rarely changing, and standard format and place for
|>menus is much easier for the Computer Neophyte to use than having random
|>pop up menus all over the place.
|
|Yes, I suppose that's true, but it's irrelevant because no one has proposed
|random popup menus.  What everyone *except* *you* is talking about is popup
|menus that appear *where* *the* *mouse* *is*.  It's like the difference
|between being able to go to the refrigerator to get yourself a drink, and
|being able to hold out your hand and have a butler stick a drink in it.

Sorry, but it is releavant.  The issue was not where the menu shows up when
you click the mouse, but where you click to get the menu you want.  To
continue your analogy, it's like sitting in the green chair to get an
Anchor Steam beer, but if you want water you have to move over to the
couch.  Many window systems (such as Xerox's Smalltalk) do just that,
depending on where you click you get a different menu.  Move all the
menus to one known place (the menu bar) and give them simple mnemonic titles
makes it more obvious to the casual user.  Which is what Andy said and
everyone *except* *you* understood.

|In some systems, the menu even remembers which selection you chose last time
|and pops up with that selection directly under the cursor, so if you're doing
|the same operation over and over you hardly even need to look at the menu,
|merely bring it up and release the mouse button.

This is nice, although I prefer Apple's solution of command keys that
select menu items.  This way I don't have to keep moving from the keyboard
to the mouse to repeat an operation.

|
|>How would a new user who has no idea what is going on feel about buttons
|>in random places on the screen, never the same, and try to find the one
|>that does what he/she wants?
|
|How should I know, why should I care?  Such a system exists only in your
|fevered imagination.  You seem to be saying that a butler moves around and you
|never know where he is, but a refrigerator always stays in the same place so
|you know where to find it; therefore, a refrigerator provides better drink
|service than a butler.

Just because your limited experience with windowing systems prevents you
from understanding what Andy is talking about is no reason to flame him.
I suggest in the future you cut the flammage in your couterpoints.  See
above for the reference to a window system that does what Andy talks
about.

|	Howard A. Landman


Jerry Whitnell				Been through Hell?
Communication Solutions, Inc.		What did you bring back for me?
						- A. Brilliant