Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sunybcs!boulder!andreas
From: andreas@sigi.Colorado.EDU (Andreas C. Lemke)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: pie menus
Message-ID: <5104@sigi.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 27 Mar 88 17:18:15 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 29

I've heard of a (new) kind of menus in which items are arranged like a
pie chart.  The menu pops up with the mouse cursor in the center so
that each item can be reached by moving the mouse in the corresponding
direction.  This supposedly improves performance for skilled users who
know which item is where.  Accessing an item in a regular vertical
list menu requires more feedback from the eye to tell whether the
correct item has been reached.

My idea is that they look something like this:

       -----------------
       |    \item1/    |
       |     \   /     |
       |item6 \ / item2|
       |-------*-------|
       |item5 / \ item3|
       |     /   \     |
       |    /item4\    |
       -----------------


Do pie menus exist?  On which system?  How are labels arranged?  Are
they really better than linear menus?  Is it more difficult (slower) for a
*novice* to find an item in such a circular arrangement?
-- 

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... andreas ..:-).
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