contextual vs topbar menu

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aechallu
Posts: 88
Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2006 5:18 pm

contextual vs topbar menu

Post by aechallu »

I was trying to mark as hits a few entries (in the list view). I could not find the command anywhere in the topbar menus. After a few minutes of browsing around, even downloading the manual, I finally found the command in a contextual menu: Mark Selected. I know it's a wrong expectation nowadays, but I still have the illusion that, whenever I can't remember where a command is, I can browse through the topbar menus and find what I'm looking for. Moreover, many mac users are not accustomed to the contextual menus, and the wheel icon is just a relatively recent invention.

I was wondering what do you think about having all commands available through the topbar menus? And if that's an ordeal or would be a GUI disaster, what about adding Mark Selected to the Refs/Mark submenu? After all it won't add any more clutter.

Cheers,
AC
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Jon
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Re: contextual vs topbar menu

Post by Jon »

aechallu wrote:I was trying to mark as hits a few entries (in the list view). I could not find the command anywhere in the topbar menus. After a few minutes of browsing around, even downloading the manual, I finally found the command in a contextual menu: Mark Selected. I know it's a wrong expectation nowadays, but I still have the illusion that, whenever I can't remember where a command is, I can browse through the topbar menus and find what I'm looking for. Moreover, many mac users are not accustomed to the contextual menus, and the wheel icon is just a relatively recent invention.
It's a gear icon, actually, and stands for the Action menu. It is an illusion, BTW, that every shortcut should have an equivalent menu. That has never been Apple's style. For example, the Finder has dozens of keyboard shortcuts that have no menu equivalent. I think Bookends has enough menus already, to tell the truth.
aechallu wrote:I was wondering what do you think about having all commands available through the topbar menus? And if that's an ordeal or would be a GUI disaster, what about adding Mark Selected to the Refs/Mark submenu? After all it won't add any more clutter.
The second option wouldn't be so bad.

Jon
Sonny Software
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