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From: hmm@laura.UUCP (Hans-Martin Mosner)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.next,comp.sys.mac,comp.cog-eng,comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: What are menus?
Message-ID: <849@laura.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jan 89 22:12:37 GMT
References: <3234@sugar.uu.net> <1472@zen.UUCP> <2308@nunki.usc.edu> <2470@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Reply-To: hmm@laura.UUCP (Hans-Martin Mosner)
Organization: University of Dortmund, W-Germany
Lines: 29

In article <2470@ssc-vax.UUCP> coy@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stephen B Coy) writes:
>Can menus be replaced with something closer to the actions they
>are a metaphor for?  When I want to edit a document I pick up a
>pencil and put it to paper.  The metaphorical desktop could have a
>pencil which could be grabbed by the pointer(ala MacPaint).
>Clicking this pencil onto a file would then invoke the editor.
>"Show Info" could be done with a magnifying glass giving you a
>closer look at the file.   Or how about having a Xerox(tm) machine
>on your desk which when fed a file spits out a duplicate?  Taken to
>an extreme this could get really annoying.
This has actually been done.  I think it is called 'active agents' or something
like that.  For example, instead of dragging a file into a trashcan, you
would drag an eraser onto a file.  Sort of like the difference between
postfix and prefix notation...  I don't know which I like better, maybe it
would be best if both ways of dealing with things were available.

	Hans-Martin

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-- 
Hans-Martin Mosner		| Don't tell Borland about Smalltalk - |
hmm@unido.{uucp,bitnet}		| they might invent Turbo Smalltalk !  |
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Disclaimer: Turbo Smalltalk may already be a trademark of Borland...