jfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu (John Bruno) (09/06/90)
Win3 "Cascading Menus" will automatically pop-up a submenu if you move the
cursor over an item that has one. I'd like to have a cascading menu that
does not automatically do that unless the user clicks, say, the right mouse
button, which would let them select something higher up on the menu. For
example:
+-----------+
| One >|
|#Two######>+--------+
| Three |Two-A |
| Four |Two-B##>+------+
+-----------|Two-C >|More |
+--------|Stuff |
+------+
Here, the user moved the cursor over "Two" in the first menu, which
automagically brings up the first sub-menu, then moves the cursor over "Two-B"
which brings up a third menu. I'd like to let the user select "Two-B" without
having that third menu come up. Will I have to write my own menu-handling
beastie to do this?
Thanks 4 any helpo
---jbspolsky-joel@cs.yale.edu (Joel Spolsky) (09/06/90)
In article <1990Sep5.192324.24707@rodan.acs.syr.edu> jfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu (John Bruno) writes: | +-----------+ | | One >| | |#Two######>+--------+ | | Three |Two-A | | | Four |Two-B##>+------+ | +-----------|Two-C >|More | | +--------|Stuff | | +------+ | | ... I'd like to let the user select "Two-B" without | having that third menu come up. Will I have to write my own menu-handling | beastie to do this? What you are describing is not internally consistent. If the user clicks and releases on the menu bar, then clicks and releases on Two, what do you want to happen? You seem to be making the assumption that the user will always drag the menus down, and never click. You are also making the assumption that nobody uses the keyboard to select items from menus. Both assumptions are wrong. Doing what you want would be severly inconsistent with the SAA/CUA and make your users unhappy. Joel Spolsky spolsky@cs.yale.edu Talk Hard.
kim@uunet.uu.net (Kim Letkeman) (09/07/90)
In article <1990Sep5.192324.24707@rodan.acs.syr.edu>, jfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu (John Bruno) writes: | I'd like to let the user select "Two-B" without having that third | menu come up. Will I have to write my own menu-handling beastie to | do this? Well, if you do, then you'll have to follow up with some documentation explaining your departure from the Motif style. There are always slight improvements (subjectively speaking) one can make to a user interface, especially for one's own personal use. But departing from an accepted standard (especially one so pervasive as Motif and MSW) is a huge risk. Reviewers of software always comment on such inconsistencies and they are not generally pleased. Neither are users who have to learn the quirks of a package's UI.