Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!umich!caen.engin.umich.edu!mingin.engin.umich.edu!news
From: mystone@mondo.engin.umich.edu (Dean Yu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Hierarchical menus
Message-ID: <1990Feb6.001532.12439@caen.engin.umich.edu>
Date: 6 Feb 90 00:15:00 GMT
References: <14044@reed.UUCP> <1990Feb5.004034.6097@oracle.com> <28018@brunix.UUCP> <10059@hoptoad.uucp>
Sender: news@caen.engin.umich.edu (USENET News System)
Reply-To: mystone@caen.engin.umich.edu
Organization: Computer Aided Engineering Network, University of Michigan
Lines: 31

In article <10059@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
>Does anyone feel there are some serious ergonomic problems with the
>Mac's hierarchical menus?  You have to do an absolutely flawless
>horizontal drag all the way over to the menu; any slight deviation from
>the roughly 16-bit-wide path to the menu will change items.  However,
>the screen layout suggests on an instinctive level that you should be
>able to drag straight to the menu item item you want, diagonally; if
>you do this, though, the submenu vanishes.  Particularly if the main
>menu is wide, there is a lot more work than there should be in
>selecting hierarchical menus, and a lot of opprtunities for error
>through small accidental hand movements or instinctive attempts to get
>directly to where one wants to go instead of straight across and then
>straight down.
>
  Are you sure about this, Tim?  I move diagonally to items I want in submenus
all the time without having the H-menu disappear on me.  I'm checking this
as I write.  There seems to be a one second delay before the hierarchical
menu disappears, and the menu item that the cursor is over highlites.  Slipping
out of an H-menu back onto a normal menu item is another story, however...  I'm
not running any special INIT that causes the delay, either.  (Not that I'm 
aware of, anyway.)
  But hierarchical menus are a pain anyway....

_______________________________________________________________________________
Dean Yu                            | E-mail:    mystone@caen.engin.umich.edu
Mac Support &                      | Real-mail: Dean Yu
 Self declared License Czar        |            Rm 145 Chrysler Building
University of Michigan             |            2121 Bonnisteel
Computer Aided Engineering Network |            Ann Arbor, MI 48109
     INCLUDE 'Disclaimers.a'       | Phone:     (313) 763-3070
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------