[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde
Subject:    Why the Mac menu bar is a good thing (was Re: Fwd: QT 2.0..)
From:       Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra () troll ! no>
Date:       1999-02-14 15:54:10
[Download RAW message or body]

Sean Kendall Schneyer <Sean.Schneyer@kau.se>
> Actually, the Mac menu mode technically requires more screen space since the
> Mac menu is taller than the application menu would have been if it were still
> "embedded" in the application frame.

That's far too simplistic.

The Mac menu bar requires h*w1 pixels, where h is a function of the
font height and w1 is the width of the screen.  The Windows and Motif
menu bars require h*(sum(w2)) pixels, where sum(w2) is the sum of the
widths of all the windows that have menu bars.

That's not, however, a decisive advantage.  The reason why the Mac
menu bar is good is that it's superiority wrt. mouse input.

Mouse input is best modelled in polar coordinates.  Any gesture may be
said to require a movement of a certain distance in a certain
direction followed by a button action.  Apple's studies indicate that
people are far better at getting the direction than the distance
right, particularly for long distances.  Therefore, instead of
thinking about height and width of mouse movement target areas, it's
better to consider their width (the direction range in angles) and
depth (the distance in pixels) from where the mouse tends to be when
moving towards the target area.

Obviously, a wide and shallow area is the worst possible shape for a
mouse movement target.  Since the mouse is typically somewhere below
the menu bar when you want to use the menu bar, Motif/Windows menu
items have precisely that shape.

The Apple menu items are slightly narrower than Motif/Windows menus
(they are further away and width is best measured in degrees) and
infinitely deep (they are at the top of the screen), so they are
easier to hit: Just push the mouse upwards and it'll stop when it hits
the menu item you're moving towards.

(And the day after I told Matthias this, KDE got its Mac menu bar :-)

--Arnt
-- 
Send posts to:  kde@lists.netcentral.net
 Send all commands to:  kde-request@lists.netcentral.net
  Put your command in the SUBJECT of the message:
   "subscribe", "unsubscribe", "set digest on", or "set digest off"
PLEASE READ THE ARCHIVED MESSAGES AT http://lists.kde.org/ BEFORE POSTING
**********************************************************************
This list is from your pals at NetCentral <http://www.netcentral.net/>

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]