TJACOBS@cc.utah.edu (06/13/90)
Ok, a folder in the Apple Menu Folder sounds like a good idea. I know Apple Human Interface folks will say that this special folder doesn't conform to the model of all the folders showing up in the Apple Menu itself. (I'm just trying to play the devils advocate here) How does the new user find out how to create the appropriate folder to have hierarchical folders? I agree that the checkbox isn't good interface design but at least it is something that can be found. (Perhaps this folder is one that is created automatically so that it is always there.) Now I need some additional ammo to send to Apple (Applelink - Human Interface discussion board). So far in bringing up the subject I have seen very little discussion on Apples part, only statements on how it will be when Sys 7 comes out. The have said things like there are very few people who will want it and they will be taken care of by some third party INIT. One of the big reasons I am trying to push for this is that too often the INITs that do these kinds of things have to do some real low level hacking and end up causing conflicts with other things and making an already bomb prone system even less stable. I am also pushing for this because I think this is a very powerful feature and helps organize things tremendously. Now if you think I am overzealous in any of these points or there are other reasons why this isn't all that important of a thing to push, please mail me. I have not received any votes against hierarchial apple menus as long as they are implimented in a decent fashion. Many of the votes were agains hierarchial menus in general but for them in the apple menu which is how I feel. As a side note I discovered something interesting about hierarchial menus in general that may not be know commonly. Perhaps it wasn't always this way and has changes with some system version. I think many are suffering from a bad habbit. People try to navigate their cursor thourght the narrow band by moving only horizontally to get over to the poped out hierarchial menu. No need to! They operate such that when you have a main menu item hilited and the popout is showing, you can go at an angle across the lower main menu items without loosing the popout! This appears to be accomplished with two techniques. One it looks to see if you are going at an angle versus straight down and it pauses for a second or so to give you time to get to the popout. This can be demonstrated by selecting a hierarchial main menu and then going at an angle down and pausing on one of the main menu items. It will pause for a second or so before switching to that item. This doesn't happen if you are going straight down or real close to straight down. They need to apply this feature to the menu bar. Many times you go at an angle to select the first item on a menu which is a hierarchial menu and you go at an angle to the right arrow and it switches to the next menu. I've also noticed many good applications are giving the user the choice of whether or not they want hierarchial memus or not. Good Idea. Claris to name one of them! Perhaps Apple needs to learn something from its offspring! Tony Jacobs Center for Engineering Design University of Utah t-jacobs@ced.utah.edu or tjacobs@cc.utah.edu
dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) (06/14/90)
In article <69335@cc.utah.edu> TJACOBS@cc.utah.edu writes: >habbit. People try to navigate their cursor thourght the narrow band by moving >only horizontally to get over to the poped out hierarchial menu. No need to! >They operate such that when you have a main menu item hilited and the >popout is showing, you can go at an angle across the lower main menu >items without loosing the popout! This appears to be accomplished with two >techniques. One it looks to see if you are going at an angle versus straight >down and it pauses for a second or so to give you time to get to the popout. Well, I learn something every day. Yes, one of the biggest pains about hierarchical menus is trying to move *precisely* sideways, without slipping up or down more than a few pixels. The tricks you mention sound like a great way to ameliorate the problem. However, I haven't ever noticed this behaviour in any of the programs I typically use. I assume this is part of Apple's new hierarchical menu support? Probably the applications I use have their own, older methods for doing hierarchical menus; in that case, things will improve as developers start using the Apple routines. >I've also noticed many good applications are giving the user the choice of >whether or not they want hierarchial memus or not. Good Idea. Claris to name >one of them! Perhaps Apple needs to learn something from its offspring! Bad Idea. Creeping Featurism, otherwise known as the Unix Mentality. (So flame me.) -- Dave Matuszek (dave@prc.unisys.com) -- Unisys Corp. / Paoli Research Center / PO Box 517 / Paoli PA 19301 -- Any resemblance between my opinions and those of my employer is improbable. < You can put a mouse on an IBM. And you can put a radio on a motorcycle. >
lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) (06/15/90)
In article <14122@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM> dave@PRC.Unisys.COM (David Lee Matuszek) writes: > I typically use. I assume this is part of Apple's new hierarchical > menu support? Probably the applications I use have their own, older > methods for doing hierarchical menus; in that case, things will The feature of moving diagonally has been part of the hierarchical menu implementation from the start. The Human Interface people spent a lot of time prototyping the exact behavior. There are some values in parameter RAM that control the hierarchical menu implementation; perhaps yours are set improperly. (I thought someone wrote a program to adjust these values.) > >I've also noticed many good applications are giving the user the choice of > >whether or not they want hierarchial memus or not. Good Idea. Claris to > > Bad Idea. Creeping Featurism, otherwise known as the Unix Mentality. I agree with you. Larry Rosenstein, Apple Computer, Inc. Object Specialist Internet: lsr@Apple.com UUCP: {nsc, sun}!apple!lsr AppleLink: Rosenstein1
alexis@panix.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) (06/15/90)
[Tony Jacobs mentions that you don't have to move exactly horizontally to get into an H-menu, and then David Matuszek guesses that this is new functionality] In fact, this feature was born at the same time as H-menus. I refer you to Inside Mac, V4. The time you have to get positioned in the child menu is (as I recall) dependant on the doubleclick time interval. I'd like to point out that it is acceptable, according to IM4, for a menu item be selectable, and also a parent of an H-Menu. Because of this, I don't see any problems with Tony's suggestion: any folders in the Apple Menu folder can be selected, just like in the current Alpha release. But they also pop down a menu containing the contents of the folder, which can be selected individually. As for the intuitiveness of this technique, it maintains that critically important 1-to-1 correspondance, and *nobody has to use it* -- but if they do, it will be _very_ obvious what's going on. (Now that I've revealed the Truth, perhaps some HI programmer at Apple can try to prove or disprove what I've said, and save us all from lots of pointless debate...) Alexis Rosen apple!panix!alexis alexis@panix.uucp
spencer@eecs.umich.edu (Spencer W. Thomas) (06/15/90)
In fact, there's a nice CDEV called "menu tuner" that allows you to adjust the time constants involved in the hierarchical menu support. Some comments from the documentation: ---------------- Who needs it? Anyone who's ever been frustrated when a submenu in a hierarchical menu went away before you could select an item in it, or who's ever been bothered by seeing all the hierarchical menus flash before your eyes as you scroll up and down the main menu. What now? MenuTuner displays two timing values that your Macintosh uses to determine how hierarchical menus behave; these are called the "Drag Delay" and the "Submenu Delay". What's the "Drag Delay"? ... In order to do what you really wanted to do all along (pick a font!), you need to mouse over to the "submenu" from the main menu -- before it disappears! Here's where the Dray Delay comes in. As long as your mouse stays positioned over the "Fonts" item in the main menu, the fonts submenu stays in view. But when you start moving toward the list of fonts to select one, you have only a certain amount of time before the menu disappears. If you don't get to your selection soon enough, you're out of luck. This interval, the amount of time a "submenu" stays around waiting for you to select an item in it, is called the "Drag Delay". Apple in its wisdom sets the standard "default" value at 60 "ticks", or one second. If this is okay for you, good. If not, you've got MenuTuner! What's the "Submenu Delay"? If you're scrolling your mouse down a menu with a number of hierarchical items, it can be distracting to have all the "submenus" appearing and disappearing in a flash as you move up and down the main menu. Take Freehand's "Type" menu as an example again; the first five items -- "Font", "Size", "Leading", "Type style", and "Effect", all have hierarchical submenus. Ideally you'd like to be able to move your mouse up and down the main menu at your own pace, pause at the item you want to select, and see the appropriate submenu come up, WITHOUT having to see all the other submenus flash on and off as you scroll by. The "Submenu Delay" determines how long your mouse can rest on a menu item before its associated submenu is displayed. Apple's default value is 8 "ticks", about one-eighth of a second. ---------------- You can also find a description of the parameters and the drag action on page 24 of Inside Mac Vol V. -- =Spencer (spencer@eecs.umich.edu)