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From: chuck@melmac.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.emacs,comp.windows.news,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Menu description languages
Message-ID: <1441@trantor.harris-atd.com>
Date: 16 Jan 89 19:55:32 GMT
References: <3234@sugar.uu.net> <12907@steinmetz.ge.com> <10867@s.ms.uky.edu> <550@island.uu.net> <15453@mimsy.UUCP>
Sender: news@trantor.harris-atd.com
Reply-To: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano)
Organization: Advanced Technology Dept., Harris Corp., Melbourne, Fl.
Lines: 33

In article <15453@mimsy.UUCP> don@brillig.umd.edu.UUCP (Don Hopkins) writes:
>In article <550@island.uu.net> daniel@island.uu.net (Dan "yes that is my real name" Smith) writes:
>[...]
>>As long as I'm writing:  I'd like to see menuing systems more like the
>>Info reader in Gnu Emacs - there are some situations where it makes
>>sense to have a menu item in two or more places; also, the users should
>>be able to redefine their menus.  I'm not talking about specific systems,
>>just a general direction that I know I'd find more convenient to use.
>>
>>				dan
>
>I did something along those lines for the UniPress's Emacs NeWS
>interface (NeMACS).  I wrote a menu compiler that lets you create
>popup menus for NeWS by describing them in Emacs INFO nodes.  I'd certianly
>like to hear about other peoples' experiences with menu description languages.

My tooltool software lets you build relatively complex user interfaces using
English-like commands and runs under SunView.  Menus are one of the interface
elements it lets you manipulate.  I know of at least one person who was using
tooltool to build alternate sets of menus to evaluate the speed with which
users could navigate the menu system.  Tooltool lets you redefine and rebuild
an interface in just minutes, without recompilation.

Tooltool is in the public domain, and is now up to version 2.0.  It is
available via anonymous ftp from trantor.harris-atd.com.  If you can't
ftp, send me mail and I'll try to get you a copy.


Chuck Musciano
Advanced Technology Department
Harris Corporation
(407) 727-6131
ARPA: chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com