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