Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!quintus!pds
From: pds@quintus.uucp (Peter Schachte)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor (Why any metaphor?)
Keywords: desktop metaphor, graphical interfaces, computing environments
Message-ID: <910@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jan 89 01:32:58 GMT
References: <850@mtfmi.att.com> <673@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> <1489@umbc3.UMD.EDU> <5057@garfield.MUN.EDU> <3193@sugar.uu.net> <5059@garfield.MUN.EDU>
Sender: news@quintus.UUCP
Reply-To: pds@quintus.UUCP (Peter Schachte)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 66

In article <5059@garfield.MUN.EDU> john13@garfield.UUCP (John Russell) writes:
>I was thinking in terms of the menu structure itself providing roadblocks,
>eg. a terse one-word identifier and no easy way to provide extended help.
>
>Hmmm, if there was a way to print a one-line summary of each item as the
>menu select box moved over it... 

This is just how the Xerox lisp machines work.  There is a standard
little window called the prompt window, which any user program is
welcome to print into.  And their menu package allows a help message to
be associated with each menu item.  When the mouse is held over a menu
item for about half a second, the help message is printed in the prompt
window.  Works great.

[ Aside:  I wish more Amiga types, especially DOGS, had some experience
  with the Xerox lisp machines environment.  They really did a lot very
  well.  For example, I was able to write a fairly small program that
  forced all my icons to line up neatly with nearby windows and icons
  when I moved them (all windows can be iconified!). The Amiga kernel is
  far superior to the Xerox system is many ways, but their windowing
  environment is hard to beat.  And if you want to see a REALLY good way
  to handle multiple screens, take a look at their ROOMS system.  Drool,
  drool.  And they still have the nicest Lisp code editor I've seen.]

One way to do this on the Amiga would be to allow the association of a
help message (limited to about 80 chars) with each menu item, and when
the mouse is held over an item for half a second, the message is
written into the screen's title bar until the mouse moves out of that
item.  You could also associate a message with whole menus, and when
the mouse lingers over the menu title in the menu bar, its help text
would be displayed.

I do think it would be A Good Thing to have a standard intuition
library call that would display a message in the screen's title bar, so
any program could display help messages in a single, consistent place
(so the ^&%$%& help key could do something intelligent for people).
The problem with this is knowing when to take the help message back
down.  I suppose it could be left up until the mouse moves more than a
few pixels or a keypress is made.  Something like that.

>of course popup menus using windows don't
>need to lock up the whole screen as you make a selection.

You'd probably want them to lock the screen, so the menus could be
cheaply taken down.  You don't want all the windows the menu covers to
have to redraw themselves.  A few simple refresh windows would make
popup menus very, very painful.

>On the other hand lots of popular Amiga programs have gadget strips. I find
>them easy to use (if not overdone), and they should be relatively simple to
>add to the Workbench program without breaking anything.

Gadget strips are basically a kind of fixed (as opposed to popup) menu.
The advantage of fixed menus is that they are always in the same place,
so one develops muscle memory to be able to hit the desired item with a
minimum of thought.  The disadvantages are that they take up real
estate, which on a 640x200 or 640x400 screen is very precious.  And
with a fixed menu, you have to move your mouse to the menu.  A popup
menu comes to you.  Pulldown menus have the advantage that they don't
waste the space, but the disadvantages of always having to move to select
an item, and the added step of pulling down the menu.

Having used all three types, I like popups best for most things.
-Peter Schachte
pds@quintus.uucp
..!sun!quintus!pds