Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!husc6!sunfs3!kent
From: kent@sunfs3.camex.uucp (Kent Borg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: System 7 question
Summary: The problem with wrapping window menus...
Message-ID: <588@sunfs3.camex.uucp>
Date: 9 Jan 90 16:47:16 GMT
References: <10734@claris.com> <578@sunfs3.camex.uucp> <1353@unocss..unl.edu> <5199@mnetor.UUCP> <2964@pur-phy>
Reply-To: kent@lloyd.UUCP (Kent Borg)
Organization: Camex, Inc., Boston, Mass USA
Lines: 45

In article <2964@pur-phy> cca@pur-phy (Charles C. Allen) writes:
>DECwindows handles this [not always enough room at the top of a
window for a menu bar] by wrapping the menubar around, as in
>
>	File  Edit  View  Special  Color
>
>becoming
>
>	File  Edit  View
>	Special  Color
>
>I have no difficulty using wrapped menubars.

But we would loose an important feature of the current menus.  People
can scan through the current menu bar by dragging left and right, and
select from within a menu be dragging down and up.  If you wrap the
menu bar, you can't do this.  It might sound trivial, but a lot of
what makes the Mac so great sounds trival.

I agree that the menu bar can get pretty far away (I wish I had more
experiance with the problem--anyone want to send me a free big screen
so I can be more authoratative?), and I agree that presto-chango
nature of the current menu bar under MultiFinder is confusing.

Menus in windows sounds good in general...  

Another problem: What if an application has more than one window open?
Do they all have the same menu?  Do different types of windows have
different menus (making them look like different apps)?  Is there a
master window which has the single menu bar?

For this last possibility, maybe this is not a window which has a
variable width?  The user interface designer would then have to work
with the trade-offs, as is done now.

Another problem: If the menu bar is no longer at the edge of the
screen, the user can no longer use the top of the screen as a
backstop.  It becomes possible to overshoot.  Sure, that is true all
over the rest of the screen, but it should still be understood before
things are changed.

-- 
Kent Borg                lloyd!kent@husc6.harvard.edu  or  ...!husc6!lloyd!kent
MacNet: kentborg                              H:(617) 776-6899  W:(617)426-3577
"The wall has been opened.  One of the most insurmountable borders in Europe
 has become a German dance floor."  -Christoph Hein, NYT Magazine, 17 Dec 1989