Edwin (and others),
great thanks for starting to work on this!
I have a number of suggestions for changes, strictly based on the HIG
[1] (except those sentences starting with IMO). If something is left
open by the HIG, I refer to what I assume are applications that well
consider the HIG, namely Safari and OmniGroup software (="OG").
Unfortunately the HIG do not cover tabbed applications, so I take Safari
3 and Firefox 3 as reference here.
Instead of having different ui/inc-files circulating around, I think it
makes more sense if you maintain the "master" version and include from
my suggestion what you deem appropriate. OK ???
I go menu-by-menu (in random order), and only talk about the suggested
changes (everything else OK). I say in advance that IMO the
Document-Menu should disappear.
**** File ***
The HIG says (also related to an older discussion):
"Close" should close the active tab (or window if it is the last tab).
Add a "Close File" to close the active file (in all views/windows). [2]
And combining this with what Safari (and Firefox) do with regards to
tabs, I propose:
New Window
New Tab
New File
New From Template ...
Open ...
Open Recent >
---------------
Close Window
Close Tab
Close File
Save
Save As ...
Save All
Revert to Saved
---------------
Import ... (more to this later)
Export As ... (more to this later) [3]
---------------
Version Control
Compress File (but IMO this should really be IN the document settings)
Statistics ... (this is like Properties, or Get Info)
---------------
Print ...
Document Settings ... [4]
Concerning Import/Export:
According to HIG this should rather be a normal Save As / Open-dialogue,
with a drop-down-list to select the format to export/import.
This is not just a menu change, but would allow the IMO nice feature of
being able to specify a file-name / location for exports (see this as
wish-list entry).
IMO: Yes, it looks a bit clustered with all the different New and Close,
but this is what they do (and also removes current confusion).
*** Edit ***
According to HIG, no separator above Select All.
Move Paragraph Up/Down and Text/Paragraph Styles would more be something
for a (HIG-recommended) Format-Menu, but we don't have that since
these four things would be the only entries (?).
*** Window vs. View ***
According to HIG there should be:
1) a VIEW menu for all what concerns appearance WITHIN a window and [6]
2) a WINDOW menu for managing the multiple windows. [7]
*** Window ***
According to HG [5] putting Source and Navigation here is perfect!
I would call them (to be consistent):
"View Source" and "View Navigation"
But all other items do NOT belong here according to HIG, but into a View
menu.
But what belongs here:
List of the existing windows (titled with the active document in the
window) - alternative IMO: list of open docs (but what window is then
shown?)
What also belongs here but we do not have:
Minimize
Maximize
Safari here has also Select next/previous tab, but this IMO breaks their
own HIG.
*** View ***
So this is a new menu following [6]. I suggest:
Open All Insets
Close All Insets
---------------
Select Next Tab
Select Previous Tab
Close Tab Group (what is that actually? It seems broken in RC2 on mac.)
---------------
Toolbars >
---------------
Fullscreen Mode
*** Document ***
There is nothing left for this menu, and the HIG give no indication
whatsoever that we should have this.
*** Navigate ***
Clearly an application-specific menu, everything fine here.
Except: A second level of sub-menus is forbidden. (p.174)
Suggestion: Just put all the lists on the first level (and group them
with a spearator), with the items in the sub-menug.
Naming: To make everything more consistent I suggest calling the menu
"Go To" (or Jump?) and all entries without "List ...", i.e.:
Next Note
Next Change
Table -> tab:Asdf
Figure -> fig:asdf
...
*** Table ***
Left/Center/Right/Top/... miss a verb.
But: see "Format", I would move it there.
*** Format ***
According to HIG this menu should be there [9].
I would suggest:
Capitalize
Uppercase
Lowercase
----------
Customized Text Style ...
Dissolve CharStyle (what is this ???)
----------
Paragraph Style ...
Move Paragraph Up
Move Paragraph Down
----------
Table > (all into sub what is in Table MainMenu now)
*** Math ***
Looks good. It could go into Format as well, but it is too large for a
sub-menu (and would have sub-sub-menues then). According HIG it is OK to
promote it to a full menu in such a situation.
*** Insert ***
Looks good, except:
IMO Footnotes and marginal notes are Notes, and we have a submenu called
Note, so they should be there. A note is a note is a note.
*** Typeset ***
According to HIG this OK to do, but IMO one uses almost always the same
one thing (no matter if dvi or pdf). So I would not waste a full
toplevel, but rather put
---------
Typeset (default)
Typeset >
---------
into File (following HIG-logic it should NOT be in View).
*CONCLUSION 1*
So my top-menus would be (ordered according to HIG):
File Edit View Insert Format Math Go To Window Help
(one could argue if Go To/Jump should be after View)
*CONCLUSION 2*
I hope somebody made it down to here in this horrendously long email.
;-) But, I really hope we get something better for the menus, soon.
Best regards,
Konrad
P.S. I also looked a bit into the Windows HIG at
<http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?FamilyID=b996e1e7-a83a-4cae-936b-2a9d94b11bc5&displaylang=en>
and what I suggested above is not far away from this: (p138)
File-Edit-View-Insert-Format-Help
And Word 2003 has
File-Edit-View-Insert-Format-Tools-Table-Window-Help,
so also quite similar.
Also a quick browse on Vista's HIG
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511502.aspx>
did not bring much new (except they sometimes use a Tools menu, but
don't really say what to use if foe (except "Options").
Vista's Wordpad has:
File - Edit - View - Insert - Format - Help
Windows has the "Window" menu equivalent as a context menu in the
Taskbar - something we should/cannot do since it is platform-specific.
[1]
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/OSXHIGuidelines.pdf>
[2]
Close . Closes the active window. ....
Close File . In a file-based application that supports multiple views of
the same file, you can include a Close File command below Close Window
to close a file and all its associated windows. If possible, include the
filename in the menu (for example, Close File “Book Report”).
[3] p.181 :
.. Displays the Save dialog to allow the user to save a copy of the
active document in a format your application does not handle.
[4] Our document settings are file-specific parameters, saved with the
document, so it is IMO very similar to the Page Setup-item in the HIG:
Page Setup... . Opens a dialog for specifying printing parameters such
as paper size and printing orientation. These parameters are saved with
the document.
[5] p.185:
Avoid using the View menu to display panels (such as tool palettes); use
the Window menu instead.
[6] p. 185:
The View menu provides commands that affect how users see a window’s
content; it does not provide
commands to select specific document windows to view or to manage a
specific document window.
Commands to organize, select, and manage windows are in the Window menu.
...
[7] p. 186:
The Window menu contains commands for organizing and managing an
application’s windows. The
menu should list an application’s open document windows (including
minimized windows) in the
order in which they were opened, with the most recently opened document
first. If a document
contains unsaved changes, a bullet should appear next to its name.
[8]If your application provides functions for formatting text, you can
include a Format menu as a top-level
menu or as a submenu of the Edit menu.
