Re: RGSG - File & Edit Menus

[Scott Goehring <scott poverty bloomington in us>]

Several more examples of applications for which a "File" menu makes no
sense:

* Terminal emulators, interactive chat clients, etc.
  Terminal emulators and other communications software are based on
  either "sessions" or "connections", not "files".

* Computer based instruction & testing
  Software used for this purpose should have very minimal menus.  The
  whole point here is to restrict the user's environment.

* POS and Credit Card authorization software
  While these applications use files, the user will be unlikely to
  frequently access these menus.  Therefore, based on the principle of
  putting frequently accessed menus ahead of infrequently accessed
  menus, the menu options for accessing files should NOT be first.

I think "File" should be like "Edit": present ONLY WHEN appropriate.
That, or allow it to be replaced by "Session" or some other term when
this is more appropriate to the application.

(Part of the reason why we always see "File" is that MacOS v7 required
that every application have a menu "File" which had an option "Quit".
This is because when you shut down your Mac, it _simulated a menu
select on File>Quit to quit each running app_.  This stylistic
requirement was as much technical as aesthetic or functional--it was
easier to simulate menu selects than to add a "Quit Now" OS callback.)