[UI] Squeak's Menus

[Bill Schwab]

Todd,

Seconded, with two exceptions: (1) if you use Microsoft software, you
*deserve* to have trouble<g>; (2) IMHO, menus should never[*] be picked
up except via halos.  The current behavior is very annoying, and even
now, I can hear the screams from the real-world users.  The
tear-off-to-create-a-gui is fine, but it is a design-time consideration,
hence my halo position.

[*] I might soften that to almost never given a good argument.  As it
is, I see it as being such an infrequent task that I would gladly resort
to a halo in order to the blasted things stop "sticking to the mouse"
(as my users would describe it).

Bill




Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: bschwab at anest.ufl.edu
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029

>>> tblanchard at mac.com 09/19/07 2:43 AM >>>
Well that's your opinion, of course.

But about 50% of the time my interaction with the thing results in  
the menu being picked up by the hand.  Which is never what I want.   
And so, my experience is that they are frustrating to work with.  I  
find that significantly annoying.  Much like I find the  
characterization of my opinion of the experience as "plain wrong".  >:-P

No other menu I have ever worked with has ever exhibited such an odd  
magnetic attraction to the mouse pointer while consistently thwarting  
my intent to invoke an action.  The only other UI element comparably  
frustrating in my experience is the endlessly tearoff-able, moveable  
toolbars in Microsoft apps like Outlook - wherein I am constantly  
inadvertently tearing off, or collapsing, or expanding, or  
rearranging tool bars by accident.

I suspect that the problem could be alleviated by only allowing menus  
to be picked up by the hand if the mouse is properly in the title item.

Just wanted to clear that up. :-)

On Sep 18, 2007, at 2:53 PM, Chris Muller wrote:

> Squeak's menus are anything but "awful."  Specifically, they support
> the keyboard and not just a modifier+hot-key (a la MS Windows menus).
> The usefulness of this is especially evidenced with
> World>>open...>>file...  Just type away instead of "hunt-and-click".
>
> Squeak menus entry's can be tacked in place, and even invdividual menu
> items can be torn off (use the duplicate halo) and placed anywhere on
> the desktop or on a flap; thus building-up your own little custom IDE.
>  They can even be turned sideways for special cases.
>
> Your complaint seemed pretty insignificant to me, so I felt the
> subject language of this thread was more than overly critical; more
> like plain wrong.
>
>
> On 9/13/07, Todd Blanchard <tblanchard at mac.com> wrote:
>> Specifically, they open to the right of the mouse.  If you open a
>> menu, don't move the mouse, and click, you will pick up the menu with
>> the hand.  This happens to me - oh - about 50% of the time.  Either
>> open the menu under the mouse, or make it so I can't pick it up
>> except with the title bar.
>>
>> Just did this for the nth time today and had to vent.
>>
>> -Todd Blanchard
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