Re: Long Menus issue (Was: Re:NeXTGtk ?)

["Ben 'The Con Man' Kahn" <xkahn cybersites com>]

On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, Gleef wrote:

> I have seen many programs made very difficult to use by poor menu design.
> The "solutions" above will give poor menu designers tools to make the
> menus worse, while giving good designers no advantage.  I would rather not
> see "Long Menu" solutions until someone poses a good "Long Menu" problem
> that would not better be fixed by other means.

	Alright...  You didn't quite understand the problem.  X Windows is
device independant.  Why is that significant?  Well...  I'll use an
example:  VNC has just been ported to the pilot.  That means you can view
and use XWindows products on that tiny little screen.  (See where I'm
going here?)  NOT EVERYONE HAS *EVEN* a 640x480 screen!  Any application
we create will have to recognize the hostile places it can be run in.

	This discussion is NOT about how to handle a growing list of
fonts....  That's easy to fix -- just look at the GOOD solutions of
others.  (Look at WordPerfect...  They use a list of the most recently
used fonts in a popup list box with other fonts listed in alphabetical
order underneath.) 

	So!  Lets work on finding working solutions for times when the
menu is bigger than the screen.  We can put a note in the style guide
about menu size if it makes people happier.  But this is a problem we need
to find a solution for.
						-Ben

------------------------------------ |\      _,,,--,,_  ,) ----------
Benjamin Kahn                        /,`.-'`'   -,  ;-;;'
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ben@cybersites.com --------------- '---''(_/--' (_/-' ---------------
 If you love something, write it in C; if it compiles, it is yours; 
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