TJACOBS@cc.utah.edu (06/16/90)
In article <8691@goofy.Apple.COM>, lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) writes: > References:<68207@cc.utah.edu> <8655@goofy.Apple.COM> <13407@wpi.wpi.edu> <41889@apple.Apple.COM> <69651@cc.utah.edu> > > I object to hierarchical menus because I find them difficult to use. I > haven't met a hierarchical menu that I liked. > If hierarchical menus were easy to use, would you want them in the Apple menu? I sense your both agains hier-menus and the Apple menu extension to use hier menus. > Your description of the test using HierDA, indicates that it wasn't a > trivial task. (You mentioned that you overshot the item, for example.) > And you are an experienced user of hierarchical menus. > It was a trivial task, just because I described the minute details of the mouse movement didn't mean I had to think anymore about it. It was all reflexive. The overshooting took place because I was trying to do it as fast as possible. Overshooting takes place with normal menus all the time and is a fact of motor control. In control systems the fastest path overshoots once and then feathers in to the desired position. Ok, I timmed it again and with very careful mouse movement it took just barely 5 seconds the first time and 4 seconds the next time. It also only took 3 seconds to select just the control panel item in the main menu. My real point is that you have to still do further mousing once the window comes up (which is going to take some time because the Finder must switch in and its windows have to be updated etc. With the current system I'm using it takes 4 seconds just to switch to the Finder and update it's windows. > You won't be able to do a fair test with System 7, because it's only an > alpha version, and that version is known to be very slow. > I'll bet ya a lunch that the release version will be at *least* twice as slow in bringing up a control panel item via a folder than my current DAmenuz does. I would guess it would be as much as 3 or 4 times slower. > I would like to see some info about how many things people keep in their > Apple menu (or OnCue menu). I have 18 in mine, of which I use 11 > regularly. I have 11 main menu items. Two of which are hierarchial, MasterJuggler and the Control Panel. MasterJuggler has 10 items in its sub menu, one of which I use a lot: the Application list of which I have 18 applications listed. The Control Panel sub menu has 21 items (I have 28 on my cx at home). There three main Apple menu things that I don't use regularly. There are 6 or 7 applicat- ions that I don't use regularly but that's the very reason I have them in the list is so that I can find them without a hunt when I need them. > It's one thing to explain what the triangle means. There's also the > question of how well an inexperienced user can use them, and in the case > of the hierarchical Apple menu explaining how to control whether a folder > appears with a hierarchical menu or not. Simple, put it in the Help Baloon! example: To make a folder hierarchial (pop out as a submenu with the contents displayed) just put the folder in the folder named "Hierarchial Folders" in the "Apple Menu Folder". (if that were the mechanism) > I agree that the Apple menu is a short-cut center. What I disagree with > is the idea that a menu containing 40 items (regardless of how they are > organized) can be considered a short-cut. If those 40 items are linear I agree. If they're hierarchial, I dissagree. Even though hierarchial menus are slower than regular menus, they are still much faster than if 2 or more additional layers of interface have to be presented to get to where you want to go. 1-the Finder is switched to, 2-the window is brought up and the user has to find the item and double click on it. Then when through I have to switch back to the application I *was* in. This brought to mind another good issue. If I want to bring up a DA in the current applications memory partition, can I do it if the DA is in a folder in the Apple menu? I remember the issue of being able to option-open a DA in System 7 was addressed but I don't remember what the answer was. > Larry Rosenstein, Apple Computer, Inc. > Object Specialist > > Internet: lsr@Apple.com UUCP: {nsc, sun}!apple!lsr > AppleLink: Rosenstein1 Tony Jacobs Center for Engineering Design University of Utah PS I'm one who made a lot of waves in the Human Interface section on Applelink and I'm going to go back and make some more waves with the discussion that has taken place here!