There are two different principles at work in context menus: Predictability and efficiency. If your users are novices or casuals users, then it might be better to disable some items and keep them around (assumming that they are used often across contexts). If your users are expert, then you may want to keep the menus as short as possible to maximize efficiency. If you are designing for software developers who might use context menus then efficiency might be more important than high predicability.
If you are designing context menus try to avoid submenus and consider that the purpose of context menus originally was to keep a person's focus on the work area and minimize travel to and from the menu bar. I now see some context menus that are way too long and that would offer little advantage in efficiency over a toolbar or menu or ribbon item. In the later 1980s, the design of context menus was considered high priority since they were a key accelerator for graphics programs, spreadsheets, and text editors. Now, I often see them thrown together without great thought about what items to choose, where they should be placed, how things should be grouped..... Chauncey On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 4:35 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > hello, > > i have a question about the behavior of context menu commands in tables which are not available. The tables could be contain different "objects" with different options (commands) and supporting multiple selections. > > My favored behavior is to remove commands which are not available. But when i distinguish between single and multiple selection and the different options of the objects i think it could be not self-explanatory about for the user which commands generally available. > > But in some cases i think it would be better to deactivating the commands which are not available or mixed the both bevaviors. > > Example: > When i select a single row i can open in context menu the object properties. At multiple selection the user could not be realised that the option to open the object properties is generally possible. > > > Has anyone experience about the problem? > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
