Menus

[swittams cix compulink co uk (Simon Wittams)]

Everybody seems to be arguing about menus atm. 
Has anybody ever thought that the defaults propagated
in most desktop systems make little sense? (Exit&Close under File,etc.)

I think we should decide one of two courses:
1) Stick as far as possible to the system everybody is used to. Ie 
Preferences under File...

It really is not worth attempting to fool people into thinking they are 
using Win/Mac menu options if *everything* isn't the same.

2) Make an entirely new default menu structure, in which every menu 
option has to be semantically viable. 
Eg have an 
*App(renamable) menu as the leftmost with quit, preferences etc... 
* File with close, open, properties... 

*Edit, for undo, redo, cut&paste etc ... 
* successive Object menus (renamable) next, for commands on the currently selected 
object/layer/word/CORBA exported thingy/whatever ...  
* {insert|new} to insert new objects/funny characters/etc .....
*help right most ( but not right justified). 
*only app and help mandatory

The thing I'm really trying to get at is that only operations relating to files 
should be in the file menu...


eg in a word processor:

App file edit page paragraph {word|object|etc} help

I would prefer the 2nd choice, but if we are going for the first, which I realise is 
much more likely due to the amount of work already done using this kind of model, 
then we must at least keep to copying MS/Apple consistently.


Rob
o