RE: Successful XEmacs/Gnu merge
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xemacs-beta(a)xemacs.org
[mailto:owner-xemacs-betaï¼ xemacs.org]On Behalf Of Adrian Aichner
Sent: 24 July 2000 21:08
To: Kevin Esler
Cc: Rod Whitby; XEmacs Beta List; XEmacs Review Mailing List
Subject: Re: Successful XEmacs/Gnu merge
>>>>> "Kevin" == Kevin Esler <esler(a)Rational.com> writes:
Kevin> Adrian Aichner writes:
>> Other xemacs-beta members will correct me if I'm wrong, but I
>> think dynamically changing menus are considered evil.
>>
>> These dynamic menus defeat muscle memory and I know of at least one
>> other colleague at work who would hate this.
>>
>> They also violate the princliple of "least surprise".
Kevin> I'd like to hear more about this. If it is indeed the
Kevin> accepted wisdom I'll happily conform. I just wasn't aware
Kevin> of it.
Can any xemacs-review members please comment on the above. Thanks.
I'm *not* on xemacs-review, but dynamic menus are definitely
spawn of the devil. It's OK to add and remove some of the menus
in the menu bar depending on context, but dynamically changing
their contents is *horrible*; generally menu contents should
be fixed, and anything inappropriate greyed out so that the
user can see that it is not an option. If something goes
away completely, they may think it's in another menu or
under another name (or maybe even accessible some other
way), then spend time looking for it only to discover that
it isn't applicable.
What's more, on Windows it's very common amongst advanced
users to learn the keystrokes used to activate their
favourite menu options; if you remove a menu item, then
these keystrokes may do something undesirable instead
of just alerting the user to the fact that whatever
they tried to do isn't currently possible for some
reason.
Kind regards,
Alastair.
____________________________________________________________
Alastair Houghton ajhoughton(a)lineone.net