daniel@vicorp.com (Daniel Dee) (11/08/90)
In comp.sys.next you write: >Instead of having the menus in the upper left hand corner or wherever >you have them, they could be attached to the top of each window. This >is the solution taken by many X applications. Alternately you can have >the menus pop up with a key held down ala xterm. I personally prefer >this strategy, I like my menus to be close to the window I'm working in >and having them right below the title bar or something like that is very >convinient. I do agree though that it could look somewhat chaotic if as >you moved across windows they had to activate and deactivate their >menus. Perhaps they should build that in as an option -- menus across >the top of windows and focus follows pointer. >I don't think it can every be said that having more options ever hurt an >Operating System. The problem I have with X applications that puts a menu bar at the top of the window is that, if your application opens multiple windows, and the windows have hierarchical relationship (e.g., magnifying a portion of a main window in a draw or paint program) instead of a flat one (e.g., Edit, WriteNow, and others), then: (1) should each window have exactly the same menubar with the same menu options, or (2) should each window have menubar of its own (or none at all) with its own options? The problem with the first method is some menu options may not be logical on all windows. To use an example (though not a very good one), should the Quit menu item be available on all windows? After all, if you want to quit, you want to quit from the primary window and not from the window containing a magnified portion of the main window. The problem with the second method is that having different menu entries on the menubar may be too confusing to the user. I have a tendency to blindly move my mouse cursor to where I think the option may be and release the mouse button. Having different menubar could cause one to make the wrong selection. It's also harder to program because now you have to create different menubars and have to identify which menubar goes with which window. I think that menubar works well only on system with a small screen such as a classic Mac. Even then, the menubar exists outside the individual windows. I think the NeXT menu window is an enhancement of the Mac menubar, and it works quite well for me. Having a pop-up menu is a nice alternative to a menubar. The problem is, in most window manager I've seen in X, there's no way you can keep the menu around after you're done with it. On the NeXT, if you want a menu option list to hang around for a while, all you have to do is tear it away from the main menu and leave it wherever it's convenient. The only equivalent capability I've seen in X is the OPEN LOOK pushpin where you pin the pop-up menu on the screen to make it stay there. I always find that kind of kludgy (the menu disappears too before it reappears pinned down). But then, that's just my own opinion. > -Eric -- Daniel (ddee@vicorp.com)