RE: Menu systems on multiple platforms
b
How do you folks handle designing menubars for both Mac and Windows?
As we've discussed here before, the ideal solution would be to
have support
for Windows' MDI ("Multiple Document Interface"), so we could
make one menu
bar and it would be at the top of the MDI parent window on Windows, and in
the menu bar on Mac OS.
But with MC as it is today, without MDI, we have two choices:
a) Replicate the menubar at the top of each window
Upside: More closely complies with the Win HIG
Downside: Requires a compromise to either the Mac HIG or
Win HIG, in that you either make complete copies
of the menu bar for all windows and then have things
look right on Mac but having irrelevant menu items
in Windows, or you tailor each menu bar group for
each window, and it feels more Windows-like but
breaks the Mac HIG (disabling menu items is
considered better than having the menu items
appear and disappear).
Another downside is that you have to be careful
that all your scripts which update menu items,
like a standard Windows menu, are all updated
needed; increases overall maintenance costs.
b) Detach the menubar into a separate window
Upside: Dirt simple to update; one menu bar lowers
maintenance costs
Downside: Not very Windows-like at all.
Given these trade-offs, which model do you folks use, and why do
you prefer
it?
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World Media Corporation
Multimedia Design and Development for Mac, Windows, UNIX, and the Web
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Re: Menu systems on multiple platforms
on 3/13/01 10:41 PM, Richard Gaskin at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
How do you folks handle designing menubars for both Mac and Windows?
As we've discussed here before, the ideal solution would be to have support
for Windows' MDI ("Multiple Document Interface"), so we could make one menu
bar and it would be at the top of the MDI parent window on Windows, and in
the menu bar on Mac OS.
But with MC as it is today, without MDI, we have two choices:
a) Replicate the menubar at the top of each window
Upside: More closely complies with the Win HIG
Downside: Requires a compromise to either the Mac HIG or
Win HIG, in that you either make complete copies
of the menu bar for all windows and then have things
look right on Mac but having irrelevant menu items
in Windows, or you tailor each menu bar group for
each window, and it feels more Windows-like but
breaks the Mac HIG (disabling menu items is
considered better than having the menu items
appear and disappear).
Another downside is that you have to be careful
that all your scripts which update menu items,
like a standard Windows menu, are all updated
needed; increases overall maintenance costs.
b) Detach the menubar into a separate window
Upside: Dirt simple to update; one menu bar lowers
maintenance costs
Downside: Not very Windows-like at all.
Given these trade-offs, which model do you folks use, and why do you prefer
it?
I have been using option B. I have not received much flak from win users.
In fact, I have had only one user really ream me for it. But, I have been
considering looking at option A. It will be a lot more work to do it that
way though.
The reason for option B is that I develop on a Mac first. I am a big Mac
fan and always start there. It is just a few more lines of code to make to
all work on the PC. Development time is the biggest consideration at this
point.
-Mark
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Re: Menu systems on multiple platforms
How do you folks handle designing menubars for both Mac and Windows?
I have only just begun creating menus in MetaCard, but so far I am pleased with the
results. I created a group of buttons whose content becomes the items of the menu, and
a tab nests the menuItems to create hierarchical menus. This menubar appears inside
the window of the stack when the stack is run under Windoze, as it does under Mac when
the "editMenus" property is true, but when the "editMenus" property is set to false
and your on a Mac, then the buttons scroll off-screen and the system-wide menubar
becomes your custom menubar.
As we've discussed here before, the ideal solution would be
to have support for Windows' MDI ("Multiple Document Interface")...
I am not sure what this implies,
or whether my solution is compliant with it.
so we could make one menu bar and it would be at the top of
the MDI parent window on Windows, and in the menu bar on Mac OS.
That seems to me what is happening with my solution. With the "editMenus" property set
to false, the menubar appears at the top of the screen, while the same menubar appears
in each card window that contains it when using Windoze.
a) Replicate the menubar at the top of each window
This is not as bad as it sounds. The menubar is a group. You can place the menubar
group in the background, e.g. so that it appears on all cards of the stack without any
unnecessary duplication.
Upside: More closely complies with the Win HIG
Yeah, if and whenever the menubar is inside the window
instead of at the top of the screen.
Requires a compromise to either the Mac HIG or Win HIG...
Not necessarily.
you either make complete copies of the menu bar for all windows...
The way that I am working now, this is true, albeit it is easy to script this copying
on newStack.
and then have things look right on Mac but having irrelevant
menu items in Windows, or you tailor each menu bar group for
each window, and it feels more Windows-like but breaks the Mac HIG
(disabling menu items is considered better than having
the menu items appear and disappear).
I have tried enabling/diabling menus and menuItems,
with the following statements, and it works!
disable menu "Text"
enable menu "Text"
disable menuItem 4 of menu "Edit"
enable menuItem 4 of menu "Edit"
hilite menuItem 9 of menu "Text"
Another downside is that you have to be careful
that all your scripts which update menu items,
like a standard Windows menu, are all updated;
increases overall maintenance costs.
Humm ... kind of unavoidable.
b) Detach the menubar into a separate window
Upside: Dirt simple to update; one menu bar lowers
maintenance costs
Downside: Not very Windows-like at all.
You mean a separate floating window, but what about the technique that MetaCard uses
itself for its menubar? Inside the stackInfo dialog, you specify which stack will be
this stack's menubar. Type: topLevel "MetaCard menu bar" and you will see that the
menubar is a stack. But, when it's in use, the menubar is at the top of the screen.
Switching stacks can change the menubar, but there is a property that allows you to
specify the default menubar when a stack (any) does not have a menubar specified.
Given these trade-offs, which model do you folks use,
and why do you prefer it?
Need I say more ;-)
Alain Farmer
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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