cs178aas@sdcc8.ucsd.EDU (Grobbins) (04/11/88)
In documenting some recent software, I've had a heck of a time
referring to hierarchical menus. Say the Edit menu has an item
Size > which is a hierarchical menu having the items Large and
Small. How should those be referred to? "item Large in the
Size menu in the Edit menu", "item Large in the Size submenu
of the Edit menu", ...?
Suggestions appreciated.
Grobbins grobbins@ucsd.{edu uucp bitnet slumnet}
(All together now: mail, don't post)
Klein bottle for rent - inquire within. (Lou O'Malley)mesard@bbn.com (Wayne Mesard) (04/11/88)
Sorry to post. My mailer choked on the address. From article <836@sdcc8.ucsd.EDU>, by cs178aas@sdcc8.ucsd.EDU (Grobbins): > In documenting some recent software, I've had a heck of a time > referring to hierarchical menus. > Suggestions appreciated. SunView calls them "pullright menus" in the programmer's interface/documentation and "walking menus" in the user's guide (as in "Menus can be strung together ... so that the user 'walks' to the right down the chain of menus in order to make a selection."). Both terms seem intuitive, in that they both describe the _action_ taken by the user, rather then the logical relation between menus. Either would be appropriate in documentation. -- unsigned *Wayne_Mesard(); MESARD@BBN.COM BBN Labs, Cambridge, MA -- unsigned *Wayne_Mesard(); MESARD@BBN.COM BBN Labs, Cambridge, MA
barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin) (04/12/88)
Symbolics uses the following notation in their documentation. When they want to refer to a menu choice, they use [Choice]. If clicking on [Choice] brings up another menu, they use the notation [Choice / SubChoice], etc. Since they use a three-button mouse, they also have a notation for specifying the button (which defaults to the Left button): [Choice (R) / SubChoice (M) / SubSubChoice] means to click the Right button on Choice, then the Middle button on SubChoice, and then the Left button on SubSubChoice. In the case of Mac menus, I would suggest replacing the "/" above with the ">" arrow that is used by the hierarchical menus themselves, e.g. "[Choice > SubChoice > SubSubChoice] in the File menu". Barry Margolin Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com uunet!think!barmar
tedj@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Ted Johnson) (04/13/88)
The notation I have seen used for the documentation of HP IC design systems with hierarchical menus is: MenuTitle:menuItem1/menuItem2/menuitem3 where menuItem1, 2, and 3 are each on succeeding hierarchical menus, and menuItem3 is the command which gets executed. -Ted
phssra@emory.uucp (Scott R. Anderson) (04/17/88)
In article <870156@hpcilzb.HP.COM> tedj@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Ted Johnson) writes: >The notation I have seen used for the documentation of HP IC design systems with hierarchical menus is: > > MenuTitle:menuItem1/menuItem2/menuitem3 Or, better yet, use the same notation for hierarchical menus that is used for hierarchical files: MenuTitle:menuItem1:menuItem2:menuitem3 After all, what is the menu bar but a displayed first-level menu? * Scott Robert Anderson * ** gatech!emoryu1!phssra * * * ** phssra@emoryu1.{bitnet,csnet} * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *