Re: PATCH: Bug 82463

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

On Sat, 2002-08-31 at 23:09, Dave Bordoley wrote:
> Removes "new window" from the context menus. This is a Calum approved UI
> change.
> 
> Rational
> -----------
> daveB says:
> 
> Based on the theory of OO UI design, context menus
> should provide menu items that perform some sort of action on the
> selected item, in this case the selected window. However new window
> doesn't do any "work" on the current directory so it violates this
> principle.
> 
> Calum says:
> 
> I'd go along with Dave's suggestion... and a quick check on Windoze
> Explorer confirms it does the same.  "Open in New Window" is fine for
> a selected icon(s)' context menu, but when there's nothing selected,
> "New Window" is somewhat of out of place IMHO.
> 
> Actually I'm not convinced it makes a lot of sense on the desktop
> context menu either, as there's no indication of what's going to be in
> the new window when it opens.  (Again, Windoze XP doesn't give you
> this option either, not that I'm advocating we just copy Windoze for
> everything of course...)

I don't know that I have strong opinions about this either way, but this
is missing consideration of another design point: Fitt's law. 

If opening new windows is an important/common operation the existing
system is *excellent*. Odds are good that the mouse will already be over
blank space, and if its not blank space is a large target area. After
that its a single right click and let up and a new window has been
opened. The most common non-object specific action should be at the top
of the right click menu, and my guess would be that this is "New
Window".

-Seth