Hello all,
In porting old apps to the Siren framework, I'm rethinking my old MultiMenu extensions. I'd like to describe the current version and solicit groupthink on other possible interaction techniques.
The basic extension is that controllers (or their editors) can maintain an ordered collection of menus (a de-composed yellow button menu), and that simple extended menu controller interaction techniques allow users to quickly step through them. This is not unlike Squeak's "more..." ParagraphEditor menu item, but it makes it easier for the user to "cycle through" a list of smaller menus (which might correspond to the categories of hierarchical menus or the items in a menu bar).
The three interface techniques I've used are: Key-step: pressing any keyboard key (e.g., <SPACE>) steps to the next menu Multi-click: clicking on the "border" of a menu steps it; and Mouse-chord: yellow button to pop-up, red button to step.
I'm sure there are more, and they're each typically one method in the controller...
If you get used to this, it's faster to navigate lists of smaller menus, for example in the text editor, there are 3-5 item menus for edit, search, eval, file, font, and finding "print-it" can either be pop-up-yellow-button, navigate to umpteenth menu item, or pop-up-yellow-button, navigate to nth sub-menu and mth menu item, or pop-up-yellow-button, step to 3rd small menu (with menu border picks, red-dbl-click, or key-presses), pick 2nd of 3 items.
Comments?
stp
_ Stephen Travis Pope _ Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE) _ Dept. of Music, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) _ stp@create.ucsb.edu, http://www.create.ucsb.edu/~stp/
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