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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Dialogs don't have menus
From:       Peter Penz <peter.penz () jk ! uni-linz ! ac ! at>
Date:       1999-09-08 15:39:54
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Derek wrote:
> 
> This reads like the opinion of someone, who is prepared to stick to it
> regardless of common sense. 
This is no opinion of "someone"  - it's fact, that this confuses users
(there were made usability tests).

> The Find dialog example is sound - a classic
> UI mistake - but only because it changes shape when it has done it's
> stuff. To say that that application shouldn't have a menu is silly.
It wasn't said that the appl. shouldn't have a menu, DIALOGS shouldn't
have one. These are two different paradigms. Find mixes both...
 
> Some applications - especially tools - don't have a content area, the
> whole thing is a dialog. They just have buttons, lists and other
> widgets. Take the printer queue status dialog as another example.
A printer-queue is also a kind of document. Don't see the word
"document" to narrow...

> Menus are still appropriate in some cases. How is the user supposed to
> get out?
He gets out of dialogs with Cancel or OK.

If you can't make a dialog for your app, take the
document-centered-paradigm (you can see a document as a "container of
objects").

> They are used to "File, Exit", but for this type of application
> they have to find another way? How do they get help?
Help-Button in Dialogs - no problem.

> If there's a text
> field, how do they paste into it?
A big text-field = a kind of document.

> What about pop up menus - both
> floating and anchored, do they count?
pop-up-menus? To you mean the widgets or a "real" pop-up-menu? Widgets:
no problem in a dialog. A real pop-up-menu is for objects, objects are
in a document => doc-centered-paradigm.

> This rule is someone's obsession. It has some merit in some cases, but
> we can't make it sweeping across all applications.
You'll never find such applications which mix dialogs and menus an a MAC
:-)

Cheers,
Peter

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