Re: pluggable context menus ...

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Sat, 2002-10-26 at 20:22, James Willcox wrote:

> > Also, the HIG states that you don't hide insensitive entries.
> 
> So you think we should always show every single action?  And only make
> the ones that apply to the selected file sensitive?  That could equate
> to an insanely long list of insensitive items.....

This is kind of getting back to the 'object-oriented UI' debate :)  

Context menus really apply to a particular object classes, so what the
HIG is really saying (IMHO) is that it's alright to have different
context menus for different classes (e.g. folders, text files,
pictures), but that the context menu for any given class should always
be the same, even if some of those items are sometimes disabled for
particular instances.

Specifically, a context menu should never contain a menu item that's
always disabled for that class (and to be honest it probably shouldn't
even contain a menu item that's always disabled for that instance,
although the UI consistency argument would probably win out there...)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems