Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!mailrus!uwmcsd1!dogie!uwvax!umn-d-ub!gandreas
From: gandreas@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU (Glenn Andreas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: defaults in hierarchical menus
Keywords: hierarchical menus
Message-ID: <391@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU>
Date: 13 Jul 88 18:07:19 GMT
References: <5969@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Reply-To: gandreas@ub.d.umn.edu.UUCP (Glenn Andreas)
Organization: University of Minnesota, Duluth
Lines: 51

In article <5969@spool.cs.wisc.edu> engber@speedy.cs.wisc.edu (Mike Engber) writes:
>Now that hierarchical menus are becoming widely used, I find that I'm having
>to move the mouse excessively to make menu selections. This is especially
>irritating when there is one item is the sub-menu that used most of the time.
>(Don't tell me about command equivalents. There are only so many that can
> done with one hand.)
Agreed

>What I would like to see is a default selection. One possibility is to
>have the first item in a sub-menu selected if you release the mouse in its
>parent menu item. Since this may not be appropriate for all h-menus, it should
>be optional. H-menus that have defaults could indicate this by highlight the
>default item along with the parent.
>
>I would argue that this is consistent with the Mac interface - when I release
>the mouse in a menu, I want something to happen.
I would argue the other way.  After all, if you release the mouse in the
menu bar on the title of the menu, nothing happens.  Selecting the menu
title just shows you what is in that menu, and doesn't do anything else.
Selecting a menu item that leads to an H-menu is the same process - you are
just selecting the title of the menu, possibly just to see what your options
in that menu are.  You may not want to do anything after seeing that that
menu doesn't contain what you want (or it is possible there but for some
reason disabled).  You let go of the button.  Would you want something do
have been done?

>
>Does anyone see any problems with this?
Yes, see above.
>                                        Is there some way I could easily
>implement this in my programs or will I have to hope that Apple picks up
>on it?

There may, however, be a way to do it (even if I don't like it).  I believe
there is a new call similar to MenuSelect which returns the item the mouse
was over when it was released.  It was designed so that you could tell if
the user tried to select an item that was disabled and possibly give some
sort of help explaining why (or at least that is what Scott Knaster's second
book said).  Perhaps you may want to combine this with some sort of check
mark before an item (SetItemMark) to indicate what you want as the default.
Another possibility would be to use a special style (SetItemStyle) to
indicate the default.  This type of thing, however, may make you unpopular,
however there may be cases where it would be useful.

>
>-ME

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= "When I was young, all I wanted was to be  | - gandreas@ub.d.umn.edu -    =
=  ruler of the universe.  Now that isn't    |   Glenn Andreas              =
=  enough" - Alex P. Keaton                  |   (Yes, a new signature!)    =
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