Re: The Help Menu

[Juri P Pakaste <juri iki fi>]

Bowie Poag <bjp@primenet.com> writes:

> Probably because none exists. :) I see no reason to scrap "File" as
> an appropriate menu item--why would you want to?

(Sigh - the archives aren't searchable, so I have no idea whatsover
how many times what I'm about to post has been shot down.)

Alan Cooper makes a pretty good case for scrapping it in _About Face:
The Essentials Of User Interface Design_. He argues that we should
hide the whole concept of file (as opposed to the stuff in memory -
why are there two copies of a document that is being edited?), because
it isn't intuitive, so:

'We no longer need to call the left-most menu the "File" menu. This
older nomenclature is a bold reminder of how the technology pokes
through the facade of our programs. We can label this menu after the
type of document we are processing - for example, we can call it
"Spreadsheet," "Invoice," or "Picture."'

Of course, this goes hand in hand with hiding several other things
associated with handling files, and it seems unlikely to happen any
time soon, although I think the idea is good.

-- 
[ Juri Pakaste / juri@iki.fi / <URL:http://www.iki.fi/juri/> ]