There are two cases I would like to bring up about context senstive menus. 1) The NeXT system (from which WindowMaker is a sibling) pretty much uses ONLY context-senstive menu systems. I have't used one in several years (unfortunately) but if I recall there were no menu bars at all, only context-senstive menu systems. I could be wrong about that though.... but the point is that it was great foir power users, but not for joe-ordainary types that didn't know to right-click, or didn't understand the context. Sure, in the context of X widget, Y makes sense, but is that clear to the user? Once the user KNOWS that X is in context, then it is VERY VERY quick and powerful, but until then it is not user friendly ADVANTAGE: Very fast for Power Users, very flexible in an object-oriented environment DISADVANTAGE: Hides UI elements, is not "intuitive", beginners can feel very lost 2) The Mac (OS 8, 9, etc.) has a synthesis of menu bars and conext-senstive. However, as has been said before, Mac context-sensitive menus are VERY small in comparison to Windows or KDE. The point of context-senstive help is NOT to give ALL of the possibilities, but rather to speed up their productivity... if you have to wade through a context-sensitive menu (as per windows) then it probably doesn't give you any speed increase, nor does it help you do your task. ADVANTAGE: Fast, Fast, Fast. Good for both Power users and New Users to get feel for environment. Simplifies operations. DISADVANTAGE: May not give all options that a power user would want to do to Y widget. SUGGESTION: Have good "standard" context-sensitive menus, like MacOS, to increase speed and learning. Then, like JEdit (as an example) give Power Users the ability to modify the context-sensitive menus so they can add functionality or move common functionality to a easily-manipulated space.
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