Menu access (was Re: RGSG)

[John R Sheets <dusk smsi-roman com>]

Dan Kaminsky wrote:
> 
> KEYBOARD CONSISTENCY.
> 
> In windows, I hit alt-F to open the file menu, then O to go to open, and hit
> enter.  Works pretty well.  (Not perfect, but it works.)  Suppose the file
> menu was *always* something different.  OK, Session, now it's alt-s and then
> O.  How bout documents, now it's alt-d and then O.  How bout graphic, now
> it's alt-g and than O.  Starcraft has this bug, it's awful.

This is probably your first decent argument for the second menu
always being called the "File" menu (or at least always the same
name, not necessarily "File").  I don't see any easy way out of
this.  Probably the foot menu should be selected if the user just
pressed Alt...  Consistent access could be through Alt, <right
arrow>.  Or maybe hitting Alt repeatedly could move you through
the major menus.  So File/Session/Document/whatever would
_always_ be Alt, Alt.  Finally, there's Alt-1, Alt-2, Alt-3,
etc., although I don't think we want the user to have to count
menu headings.  

Probably a better suggestion would be that Alt <release> moves
focus to the menu bar, starting with the foot highlighted. 
Hitting the space bar would page through the main menus, opening
the submenus as it went along (and wrapping around from Help to
the foot menu).  The arrow keys should respond intuitively to
menu navigation.  And the Alt-S (or first letter of the menu)
should also work.

John