On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 19:48:25 -0500 "Matthew D. Fuller" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 02:00:41PM -0400 I heard the voice of > Steve Litt, and lo! it spake thus: [snip] > > > If somebody pushes Return on a menu item with no default, show the > > submenu. It does not work this way now. > > 'k... let's think through the implications. This creates a few new > inconsistencies: > > - The first is that now Return is *not* exactly the same as releasing > the mouse button, since it'll sometimes pop out a submenu. I think > that's a pretty easy cost to accept. Also, it's pretty much implicit in the fact that you have default entries for choices that invoke submenus. A much more visually distinctive appearance of command choices, submenu choices without defaults, and submenu choices with defaults would be in order. > > - The second is that now instead of knowing (insofar as anybody > "knows" the scantily documented) that it'll always invoke the > default entry, it'll now behave different when there is vs. isn't. Once again, the more visual distinction between the three types of menu choices would go a long way toward making it clear to the user. And you're right, a short essay on keyboard useage of menus would go a long way. > So if you're existing it to invoke a thing (if one's there), or exit > out of menus without invoking a thing (if one's not there), it winds > up popping out a submenu instead. That's possibly surprising. > OTOH, it's not dangerous (since it doesn't invoke anything), and > it's trivial to "recover" from (just back out of the menu). So, I'd > say that's an easy cost to accept as well. > > The flip side, which is slightly tougher, is in getting people used > to hitting Return to pop out the submenus, which then suddenly > starts invoking a default entry instead when they happen upon a menu > that has one. The preceding sentence could be parsed two different ways: 1) The flip side, which is slightly tougher, is in getting people WHO ARE used to hitting return... 2) The flip side, which is slightly tougher, is in ACCLIMATIZING people to hitting return... From context I suspect it's #1 but I'm not sure. If it's #1, another short document should suffice. I think most people, upon giving the matter thought, would agree that pressing Enter rather than Escape to exit a menu is, and I mean this without any insult to the programmers, pathological. I think they'd realize it's a bad habit enabled by unexpected behavior. If the meaning was #2, I have no idea. > Now, you can argue that a user's menus won't HAVE > default entries unless they ADD them, and if they do that they're > presumably _intending_ that invocation. Unless the sysadmin set them up for the users. Here again, a dramatic visual distinction between the three kinds of choices would go a long way toward making things more obvious. > That's weakened a little by > the existing magic-default stuff on the magic Workspaces menu. > Unlike the case above, the surprise _can_ be dangerous since it's > invoking something, and is harder to recover from since you ran an > unexpected thing and left the menus. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Perhaps keep the existing behavior on the magic Workspaces menu, at least until somebody's figured out a workflow that's truly superior. If, by "the magic Workspaces menu", you mean that no-titlebar window with eight little chicket squares which you can use to switch workspaces, I've had so much trouble with that thing that I gave up on it, and don't care how it works. But that's for another email. > > I think I'd buy the argument that the convenience is worth the cost > in that case too. I'm not sure it's as obviously so as the earlier > cases though. Definitely be interested in second thru seventh > opinions on that, especially from anybody else doing a lot of > keyboarding in menus. :-) Judging from the sample ~/.ctwmrc files I see around the Internet, I have a feeling I'm a part of a very tiny minority who don't operate ctwm using a mouse exclusively. With what I'm developing, it's possible I'll be joined by quite a few other keyboarding enthusiasts, once I publish my documents and .ctwmrc suggestions. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt September 2017 featured book: Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting Brand new, second edition http://www.troubleshooters.com/mgr
