Window Frames Part III

Stephen Pair spair at advantive.com
Tue Jul 31 20:57:49 UTC 2001


> I agree--within morphic, we already have context menus and 
> halos.  Let's use those, instead of having menu icons and 
> menu bars.  They're better, anyway.

I think a menu bar is a very good UI concept...but you're right, they
should be part of the same framework as context menus...a menu bar
should be like a context menu that you've instructed to stay up.  The
menu can then have wordy items (like today), shortened one word items,
just icons, or some combination of these (all of these things would be
morphs of course, but the person designing the menu could decide how it
should look in all of these states).  You could even allow these menu
bars to snap to the edges of a system window, or be contained within the
borders of a system window. 
 
> While we're at it, let's get rid of resize handles, too.  I 
> have trouble clicking them when I want, yet I seem to click 
> them all the time when I don't mean to.  Instead, I'd rather 
> a SystemWindow's panes are real morphs.  Then, I can resize a 
> SW pane the same way I'd resize any other
> morph: blue-click then use the yellow handle.

But they are real Morphs.  The handles work just fine on system windows.
I don't think that's a good reason against some morphs having more
convenient ways of resizing.  I would prefer not to have to pull up the
halo just to resize a system window.  (but I agree that those resize
balls must be banished)

> BTW, on Linux blue-click is right-click, on Windows it is 
> middle-click, and on Macs it is apple-click.  That's why 
> people say "blue-click" instead of "middle-click".  Also, 
> many lefty's reverse their mouse button orders, anyway....

The complaint is none the less valid.  It would be nice if there was a
mouse configuration tool on the desktop of the base image that would
associate the colors with the actions (I can never remember which is
which without diving into the code, or someone reminding me).

- Stephen





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