SV: Gimp-style menus

["Blad, John Erling" <john erling blad aftenposten no>]

In one project we had a very strict time schedule for the
interaction with some "objects" in the application. We used
right-click menus (popup menus) partly as a context menu but
mostly as a "speed menu" to overcome this.

A speed menu was nothing like the complete menu system. It
was not even a subset like "Edit" from the menubar. 

Our menu looks something like this

  +-------------+
  | ----------- | <- Tear off
  +-------------+
  | Select some | <- Global selection strategys
  | Select all  |
  | Deselect    |
  +-------------+
  | Action 1    | <- Global actions
  | Action 2    |
  | Action N    |
  +-------------+
  | Method 1    | <- Object methods
  | Method 2    |
  | Method N    |
  +-------------+

Only the last part of the menu changes for each object
type. Also, even when there are no selected objects there
will be a valid speed menu.

One additional point, in a speed menu there should be no
submenus. This is a serious constraint to what you can put
into it. It is much faster to move the pointer to the menubar
and access some items in a drop-down menu then traversing
into deep submenus.

John