Re: right click *in* a menu

[Tristan Van Berkom <tristanvb openismus com>]

On Tue, 2010-12-07 at 08:44 +0100, Martin Nordholts wrote:
> On 12/06/2010 11:37 PM, Petr Tomasek wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 08:38:34PM +0100, Jernej Simončič wrote:
> >> On Mon, 6 Dec 2010 14:33:21 -0500, Paul Davis wrote:
> >>
> >>> well, i think it implies being able to use a menu like a dialog
> >>> window.
> >>
> >> Exactly. If you need the menu to behave like a dialog box, use a dialog
> >> box.
> >
> > Hm, why are you so dogmatic? Normal user uses _left_ click for
> > opening the menu and _left_ click chooses an menu iterm and
> > closes the menu.
> >
> > So it is quite usefull to reuse _right_ click for other task,
> > such as for selecting multiple items out of the menu at once.
> >
> > I don't see any reason, why a dialog box must be used if for
> > most users the menu is optimal way (because they select
> > only one item most the time) and the minority may use it
> > with the right click in a more powerfull way.
> 
> The problem to be solved is not "How do we modify GTK+ to make it as 
> easy as possible to invoke nested menu items several times in a row in 
> Ardour", but "How can we redesign the Ardour UI so users don't have to 
> invoke nested menu items several times in a row to use the software".
> 
> Like you though, I strongly doubt dialog boxes will be part of an 
> optimal solution.

User configurable toolbar/control panel could be a solution ?

Just a tentative idea, with advanced editing tools (3d modelling
softwares being good examples), you generally want to let the
user tailor their workflow to their own specific needs (different
people use the software to achieve different tasks, with a gazillion
options and features it's hard to guess which tasks are good 
candidates to use up screen real-estate in a toolbar).

Maybe something as simple as implementing DnD from a menu-item
to a drop area in the toolbar/control panel is a good solution
(then you save the actions in some session data).

Cheers,
      -Tristan