purcell@sciences.sdsu.edu (Guy B. Purcell) (06/18/90)
As long as there's a raging debate about hierarchical menus, here's another qualm I have with their lack in the MacOS (I support the "Apple Menu Folder subfolder == submenu" idea). I would find it *very* convenient if I could use the 'current path' pop-up menu in a StdFile dialog to navagate *down* a tree as well as *up* (currently only 'up' is allowed). Consider the effort it takes to do something as common as openning a file that is located in a folder that resides in a folder that resides in a folder 'above' the current folder: click on current path (menu pops down); drag to desired folder 'above' & release; double-click on desired folder in list of files/folders; d-c again on next desired folder in new list; d-c again on file in next new list. What a pain!!! I have often wished that I could just click on the current path, drag down to desired 'above' folder (submenu pops up), drag over to desired folder (another submenu pops up), drag to next desired folder & release. Now d-c on the file in the list. This bypasses the necessity to generate a list for anything other than folders for the submenu selected, as well as all that clicking & scrolling (remember that some of those folders may be far down a list out of view). Yes, I know that the keyboard can speed things up (going down only -- the current path pop-up is still the only way to go up). But only if you're certain of the spelling (at least the first few characters worth) of the names, and can type well blindly. And as long as I'm griping about StdFile, it would also be nice to have a pop-up for the current volume. It's a royal pain to cycle around all mounted volumes (**especially if some of them aren't fast** like TOPS volumes -- even if they are on a Sun & I have an ethernet card!) to get to the one I want. The Nisus 'Catalog' window does just this. StdFile hasn't kept up with the times. With the proliferation of large and/or multiple mounted volumes, it's time some changes were made. Guy (purcell@zeus.sdsu.edu)