Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!elroy!gryphon!cadovax!keithd
From: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Standardization
Keywords: Menus
Message-ID: <2287@cadovax.UUCP>
Date: 21 Oct 88 21:12:04 GMT
References: <1314@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Reply-To: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Organization: Contel Business Systems, Torrance, CA
Lines: 42

In article <1314@nmtsun.nmt.edu> wbnsnsr@nmtsun.nmt.edu (William Norris) writes:
>* Question:  Should the font menu be arranged 1) across several columns
>*            if there are that many fonts or 2) with a down arrow
>*            at the bottom of the menu and scroll down the menu for
>*            the additional columns?

Fonts should be in a scrollable requester and not completely contained in a 
menu bar item.  Font selection is generally not a simple canned 'set the flag' 
operation, a requester can also allow you to preview the font within the 
requester, select an alternate font directory etc.  It's use can be made
to be consistant with file requester operation, and may be able to share 
some common code.

One problem I have been struggling with somewhat with file requesters is
that I would like to keep the file list around, but if you have multiple
file requesters for different file operations, how many lists of files
should you actually maintain?  

Take a typical paint program that has image load/save, brush load/save etc.
Should load and save always use the same list?  This assumes that you usually 
load and save to the same directory, and not differing directories.  

Should load and save be "smart" and use the same list until the user makes 
one of them different?  What about brushes?  Should the brush load use the 
same list as the image load?  

This business of defaulting to a directory called "brush" is bogus, I've
never wanted to put all my brushes in a directory called "brush", as
it usually doesn't exist.  I suppose if it was automatically created
it would be a little more useful, but even then I don't feel the need to
put all my images in "brush", "lo-res" or "interlace", I usually prefer to
group them all together regardless of resolution.

Should file requesters always be "smart" and use the same list until the 
user selects a new directory (prompting for creation or even new-disk
formatting), then automatically build a new list (just for that 
directory on that particular load/save selection)?  If so, when do you 
decide to free up an old list, or do you just carry around 6 or 7 lists
one for each of the image/brush load/save's you've done since starting
the program?

Keith Doyle
#  {ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd  Contel Business Systems 213-323-8170