From: utzoo!decvax!cca!Hamilton.es@PARC-MAXC@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.works Title: Re: Menu Systems Article-I.D.: sri-unix.2463 Posted: Thu Aug 5 17:38:49 1982 Received: Sun Aug 8 06:30:11 1982 Folks seem to be talking about menus in what is still basically a single-window, TTY style of interaction. I don't doubt that they usually lose in such an environment. But having worked for several years in the Mesa environment, where many tools let the user use any combination of typein and pop-up "hint" menus, I can say that mouse plus pop-up menu always wins if the typein is more than two or three characters -- and I'm a good typist. (Assuming the menu pops up instantly; sometimes it can take several seconds to paint, due to swapping.) The menu item can typically be called up and invoked in less than one second, with a single click-sweep-release of the mouse. I believe similar figures would apply to Interlisp-D and Smalltalk. --Bruce