Re: calling gtk_menu_popup from a button's "clicked" signal

[Greg Breland <gbreland mozillanews org>]

On Mon, 2005-07-25 at 11:53, Tristan Van Berkom wrote:

> I suppose generating the arguments for gtk_menu_popup() is no big deal
> but why would you want to use a GtkButton to create a context menu ?


First, I'm 100% with you on this issue.  The product I support does this
and it confuses the users 100% of the time.  However, I can't say I
could offer a better option where I have seen this interface used.  I
blame it on how terrible combo boxes are on all platforms.

The places I've seen it used are when the user is entering very generic
data.  The dialog allows the user to  save the data or to cancel.  If
the user wishes to save, the program has to know where/how to save the
data.

For example, our product helps users keep track of customers and what
they've done for these customers.  When our user's phone rings, they
instantly hit F6 which is an activity dialog that lets them pick the
customer and enter in free form notes.  The user is only given the
option to "save" or "cancel".  When the user clicks "save" they get a
context menu where they can pick what to do with the data.  There are
about ~13 options on the menu.  Here are a couple of examples:

1) Save as Note
2) Save as Completed Phone Call
3) Save as Completed Phone Call with Followup
4) Etc.

Until the user has been using that screen for a few days, it confuses
the mess out of them.  There are only maybe 5 places that technique is
used in the product thank goodness.  Having a required combo box where
the user chooses the type of record to create would slow the user down
or so the thinking went by the developer.  The only other option would
have been to make the combo change save the form, but that would have
been even worse.