engber@speedy.cs.wisc.edu (Mike Engber) (07/13/88)
Now that hierarchical menus are becoming widely used, I find that I'm having to move the mouse excessively to make menu selections. This is especially irritating when there is one item is the sub-menu that used most of the time. (Don't tell me about command equivalents. There are only so many that can done with one hand.) What I would like to see is a default selection. One possibility is to have the first item in a sub-menu selected if you release the mouse in its parent menu item. Since this may not be appropriate for all h-menus, it should be optional. H-menus that have defaults could indicate this by highlight the default item along with the parent. I would argue that this is consistent with the Mac interface - when I release the mouse in a menu, I want something to happen. Does anyone see any problems with this? Is there some way I could easily implement this in my programs or will I have to hope that Apple picks up on it? -ME
gandreas@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU (Glenn Andreas) (07/14/88)
In article <5969@spool.cs.wisc.edu> engber@speedy.cs.wisc.edu (Mike Engber) writes: >Now that hierarchical menus are becoming widely used, I find that I'm having >to move the mouse excessively to make menu selections. This is especially >irritating when there is one item is the sub-menu that used most of the time. >(Don't tell me about command equivalents. There are only so many that can > done with one hand.) Agreed >What I would like to see is a default selection. One possibility is to >have the first item in a sub-menu selected if you release the mouse in its >parent menu item. Since this may not be appropriate for all h-menus, it should >be optional. H-menus that have defaults could indicate this by highlight the >default item along with the parent. > >I would argue that this is consistent with the Mac interface - when I release >the mouse in a menu, I want something to happen. I would argue the other way. After all, if you release the mouse in the menu bar on the title of the menu, nothing happens. Selecting the menu title just shows you what is in that menu, and doesn't do anything else. Selecting a menu item that leads to an H-menu is the same process - you are just selecting the title of the menu, possibly just to see what your options in that menu are. You may not want to do anything after seeing that that menu doesn't contain what you want (or it is possible there but for some reason disabled). You let go of the button. Would you want something do have been done? > >Does anyone see any problems with this? Yes, see above. > Is there some way I could easily >implement this in my programs or will I have to hope that Apple picks up >on it? There may, however, be a way to do it (even if I don't like it). I believe there is a new call similar to MenuSelect which returns the item the mouse was over when it was released. It was designed so that you could tell if the user tried to select an item that was disabled and possibly give some sort of help explaining why (or at least that is what Scott Knaster's second book said). Perhaps you may want to combine this with some sort of check mark before an item (SetItemMark) to indicate what you want as the default. Another possibility would be to use a special style (SetItemStyle) to indicate the default. This type of thing, however, may make you unpopular, however there may be cases where it would be useful. > >-ME =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = "When I was young, all I wanted was to be | - gandreas@ub.d.umn.edu - = = ruler of the universe. Now that isn't | Glenn Andreas = = enough" - Alex P. Keaton | (Yes, a new signature!) = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
phd@speech1.cs.cmu.edu (Paul Dietz) (07/14/88)
In article <391@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU> gandreas@ub.d.umn.edu.UUCP (Glenn Andreas) writes: >In article <5969@spool.cs.wisc.edu> engber@speedy.cs.wisc.edu (Mike Engber) writes: >>Now that hierarchical menus are becoming widely used, I find that I'm having >>to move the mouse excessively to make menu selections. >Agreed Triple that! >>What I would like to see is a default selection. One possibility is to >>have the first item in a sub-menu selected if you release the mouse in its >>parent menu item. Since this may not be appropriate for all h-menus, it should >>be optional. H-menus that have defaults could indicate this by highlight the >>default item along with the parent. An obvious way to eliminate some of the concerns is to show all the defaults when you pull down the top level menu. Since there is only one default max per menu item, these would fit alongside the original menu. Then you could just select the top level item, and get the default without having to wqit for the heirarchy to pop-up. Of course, when it does pop-up, the default should somehow be indicated. Just another random opinion... Paul H. Dietz ____ ____ Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering / oo \ <_<\\\ Carnegie Mellon University /| \/ |\ \\ \\ -------------------------------------------- | | ( ) | | | ||\\ "If God had meant for penguins to fly, -->--<-- / / |\\\ / he would have given them wings." _________^__^_________/ / / \\\\-
alan@Apple.COM (Alan Mimms) (07/15/88)
% From coherent.com!dplatt Thu Jul 14 10:31:23 1988 % Subject: Aha... things are becoming clearer... % % I poked around a bit in the Micah Installer and the driver last night, % and I think I see what's going on. Micah appears to be using the % _Status trap to retrieve specified pieces of the sense-information % recorded by an earlier I/O operation. Checking for bad sectors during % the init/test cycle, perhaps? At least, that appears to be what's % occurring... % % This would have worked fine under 5.0 and earlier releases; Apple had % never specified the _Status interface for the SCSI driver (as you % determined, the sample driver doesn't implement it at all) and IM says % that the codes and results for _Status are driver-specific. From what I % can see, Micah was free to use _Status in the way they did; they were % breaking none of the Apple rules. % % Then, in 6.0, Apple decided to define a new use for _Status that was % incompatible with Micah's use of _Status... in effect, Apple entirely % preempted _Status csCode=6, and wrote code that depended on the new % interpretation. Based on what you've told me, and on what I've heard % from others, it sounds as if this was done with no advanced notice to % outside developers. In effect, Apple added device-dependent code to % Disk First Aid and the disk-init package. % % I rather imagine that somebody at Apple is being, or will soon be % roasted over a slow fire for this. It's yet one more indication that % System 6.0 was pushed out the door too fast and with too little % third-party verification and testing. Sigh... even Apple isn't immune % to those time-pressures, I guess. % % -dave- I've been conversing with David Platt (who is a Macintosh developer) and have been trying to help him determine the problem he's having with his hard disk. Apparently, several hard disk manufacturers have used the _Status call to do things in a perfectly reasonable fashion. Unfortunately, Apple has shot them in the foot. I know that we'll probably say we're sorry, but that doesn't help the people who have hard disk with broken drivers. Can we somehow help these people get their systems upgraded to System Software 6.0? alan Alan Mimms My opinions are generally Communications Products Group pretty worthless, but Apple Computer they *are* my own... ...it's so simple that only a child can do it! -- Tom Lehrer, "New Math" PS: Note that this is only being posted within the Apple campus. Alan Mimms My opinions are generally Communications Products Group pretty worthless, but Apple Computer they *are* my own... ...it's so simple that only a child can do it! -- Tom Lehrer, "New Math"