File menu is universal? ( was Re: what's the right tool for text
file templates?)
tim Rowledge
tim at rowledge.org
Tue Nov 29 20:23:42 UTC 2005
On 29-Nov-05, at 11:59 AM, Larry White wrote:
>
> 1. I should be able to load the file from the "File List" browser.
> This is a close as Squeak comes to a file menu, which is a
> universally accepted approach to loading files into desktop software.
Leaving aside the other issues and admittedly off topic somewhat, I
have to point out that this is an incorrect assertion. The concept of
a 'file menu' is far from universal, and far from a good UI idea.
Consider RISC OS where there is no such idea. Files are loaded by
dragging them from some other application. One such application is
the filer window but it works equally well if it is another app that
edits the same type of file. There is no idiotic 'mini-finder' used,
just the main finder or other app. Completely pervasive drag and drop
works a lot better. It provides a UI level loose equivalent of pipes;
you can start by drawing something in the art app, drag it out to the
convert-art-to-bitmap app, drag from that to the convert-bitmap-to-
jpeg app and then drag that to the ftp app to save it to the website.
Yes, it's very different to the boring 'standard' of Windows and Mac.
It is a good demonstraton that 'file menu' is not a universally
accepted approach.
tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
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