From: johnsd2@lib106.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: rtaylor@cie.uoregon.edu (Russ Taylor)
Reply-To: johnsd2@lib106.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 23:35:52 GMT

In article 1342@yvax.byu.edu, feijai@endor.byu.edu (Sean Luke) writes:
>In article <aggie-220193173415@wealthy.ocean.fsu.edu>  writes:
>
>>To paraphrase what I've said elsewhere: yeah? so what good is it? I find
>>popping the menu with the mouse click to be mostly useless. 
>
>
>At the risk of getting into another war with people who don't understand the  
>inherent advantages of a menu button:

Aw c'mon, this is always a fun topic! :)

>On large screens (say, 17 inches and larger), menus are on the perimeter,  
>and are tough to get at from the screen center where the mouse usually is,  
>unless the mouse is set at an unusually fast setting, or there's some  
>big-menu gimmick.

Yup. (but see below a bit)

>  Sun, NeXT, and other workstation vendors have dealt with  
>this problem for a long itme.  For X-Windows, the answer is putting menus  
>into windows, so they'll be closer to user focus.

Actually, you probably mean Motif. Open Look does a lot with popup menus.

>  For the NeXT, the answer  
>is to make a menu button that calls down the menu automatically, so it'll  
>*always* be at the user focus.

This would work for NeXT; it isn't loosing all that much by poping it up.

>  The Mac is the only large-monitor  
>manufacturer that hasn't addressed this situation yet, but I imagine they  
>will eventually.

Actually it has always been dealt with. The Mac's menubar runs along
the top of the screen, so that the mouse cant pass through it. Thus
verticle aiming is not required; you just throw the mouse up there.

You must still aim horizontally, but menu titles are usually big enough,
and nobody has ever come up with a solution to the precision problem here
anyway. (you still gotta hit the right menu, no matter where the
menus are!)

Does this work, you ask? Works for ME, anyway, on my 19 inch monitor. I can
hit a menu items faster on that than on a NeXT system, tho perhaps
this is just the fact that I am not that used to the NeXT menu system.

In any way it works quite well for me. For what thats worth.

On the other hand, I can see the NeXT needing the popup; although the
NeXT menu has a backstop like the Macs, the menu is a much smaller target
vertically. Basically, the backstop helps you in the wrong axis-
it helps you hit the menu horizontally (where the menu items are nice
and wide) but not vertically (where they are skinny).

But the NeXT also lets you move the menublockthing, so Im not sure
its necessary to have a popup. But by default its off anyway, so
perhaps I should not complain.

>
>>I wasn't clear
>>enough, though. What I meant is: How many app's actually use the second
>>mouse button for SOMETHING other than bringing up the app's menu? As far
>>as I know, only one, the commercial X application by Pencom [?Pensoft?].
>
>
>NeXT uses it for nothing but the pull-down menu.  Software makers (other  
>than Pencom et al, who have a use for it) are heavily advised against using  
>it for anything custom.  That's what we in the computer world call  
>"consistency".

Consistency, what's that? :)

And who's this Pencom? What do they do with it?

---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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