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Re: My GWorkspace feature request


From: Philippe C.D. Robert
Subject: Re: My GWorkspace feature request
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 12:20:21 +0200

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, MJ Ray wrote:
> Philippe C.D. Robert <probert@sgi.com> wrote:
> > So you actually did write about moving to a contextual menu, you just call
> > it "invisible menu item". If this is something different then please
> > explain what you mean by that.
>
> An item on the menu that hasn't appeared, evidently.  To do anything
> useful with your menu, you have to move to an item on it, not just pop
> it up.
>
> > Anyway, my point is that you don't move at all to a contextual menu, since
> > it shows up where your mouse pointer is.
>
> Yes, so you keep saying, totally ignoring my point.  I think we've all
> gathered that the menu appears nearer the pointer *if* you know it exists.
> Then again, so does the main menu already.  No gain either way.

I do not ignore anything, I just fail to understand your reasoning. As we
discuss contextual menus I am not talking about invisible global (sub)menus or
whatever you are referring to. All I am saying is that with contextual menus
you can provide functionality specific to the object you point at right at the
moment. Now I agree this should not be used in a confusing manner, so I
could imagine that the middle mouse button could be used to show this menu
while the right button would be used for the global app menu, for example.

And yes, there is a gain here, because it accelerates the process of
interacting with the application. I am not talking about simple apps here,
I am talking about apps having a lot of menu entries, think of something in
the size of Photoshop and you will see that using too many inspectors and
deep menu structures is not (always) the way to go.

> >> Yes, menus can be detached anyway, so why is there all this talk about
> >> special contextual menus? They add nothing but interface confusion.
> >> GNUstep does not need that.
> > Because a contextual menu contains menu entries which are diffierent to the
> > global main menu, they are specific to the selected object. Thus the word
> > "contextual"...
>
> Are you saying that you want items on the pop-up menu that are not on the
> global menu?  That would be Evil, Bad and Wrong, as well as inconsistent.

Yes I am, or at least not in the same structure. And it would not be Evil,
Bad, Wrong or inconsistent, it would/can be a useful addition to a gui if
used properly. This includes that such menus are part of the gui guidelines
so that users are familiar with the concept.

> If you only want items on there that are available (ie not greyed), then
> that breaks (or at least stretches) the idea of constant menu geography.
> I think is one of the things that we have right already and shouldn't
> sacrifice cheaply.


-Phil
--
Philippe C.D. Robert     |  VNET# 559-1565
Core Rendering           |  Office: +41 (0)32 732 15 65
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