Is there any standard definition of when a right-mouse-button click is said to have occurred? On a related note, are popup menus meant to have a default highlighted option activated on releasing the right mouse button? I ask because I've noticed some annoying differences in behaviour between applications, leading to very timid use of the right mouse button! In the HIG Popup Menu section, it says "A popup menu is shown when the user right-clicks on an object". Some apps popup the menu when the button is pressed down, some when the button is released. The confusion arises when you're expecting activation on release, but a menu option has already been highlighted by the press action. When switching between applications, I frequently mistakenly activate the first popup menu option because of a simple right-button press and release. Is this something which should be addressed in the HIG, or is it solvable at the toolkit level? Personally I'd recommend: a. Popup menus are away from the mouse, so no items become highlighted automatically. b. Menus appear on the button down event c. Releasing the mouse button over a highlighted menu item activates the item. Just having (a) consistently implemented would eliminate much of the annoyance, but I think (b) and (c) are good standards to formalise. Has anyone done any usability testing in this area? I suspect novice users confronted with automatic activation on right-click-and-release would be unsettled by the rapid appearance and disappearance of a menu and immediately ask "What happened? What did I just do?" -Kevin
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