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.2.1.drop-Down Menus: Figure 4-2

The document discusses guidelines for menus, including drop-down menus, submenus, and popup menus. Drop-down menus appear when the user clicks on a menu title or presses return while focused on a title. Submenus can save space by grouping related commands but should be used sparingly. Popup menus provide shortcuts for selected objects and should include applicable commands and input methods. Menubars provide access to drop-down menus and should follow standard ordering of titles.

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45 views4 pages

.2.1.drop-Down Menus: Figure 4-2

The document discusses guidelines for menus, including drop-down menus, submenus, and popup menus. Drop-down menus appear when the user clicks on a menu title or presses return while focused on a title. Submenus can save space by grouping related commands but should be used sparingly. Popup menus provide shortcuts for selected objects and should include applicable commands and input methods. Menubars provide access to drop-down menus and should follow standard ordering of titles.

Uploaded by

shanthoshk7
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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 .2.1.

Drop-down Menus
Figure 4-2 A typical drop-down menu

A drop-down menu appears when the user clicks on its title in a menubar, or
focuses the title and presses Return.
Guidelines
• Only place items on a menu that relate to that menu's title.

• Organize menu items in the standard order— see Section 4.4 ― Standard
Menus. For application-specific items where there is no standard order,
arrange in numerical or other logical order (for example, 50%, 100%,
200%), task order (for example, Compile followed by Debug) or by
expected frequency of use.

• Limittop-level menus to a maximum of about 15 items. If you have any


more items than this, consider moving a functionally-related subset of the
items into a submenu or a new top-level menu.

• Do not add or remove individual menu items while the application is


running, make them insensitive instead. Entire menus may be added or
removed from the menubar at runtime, however, for example in component-
based applications.

• Immediately update menu items that are edited directly or indirectly by the
user, such as those on the Open Recent submenu and the Bookmarks
menu.

 4.2.2.Submenus
Figure 4-3 A drop-down menu with a submenu
A submenu appears when the user clicks its title, which is indicated by a small
arrow symbol beside its label. You can save space on long menus by grouping
related commands onto a single submenu.
Guidelines
• Use submenus sparingly, as they are physically difficult to navigate and
make it harder to find and reach the items they contain.

• Do not create submenus with fewer than three items, unless the items are
added dynamically (for example the File ▸ New Tab submenu in gnome-
terminal).

• Do not nest submenus within submenus. More than two levels of hierarchy
are difficult to memorize and navigate.

 4.2.3.Popup Menus
Figure 4-4 A popup menu for a mail folder

Popup menus provide shortcuts to those menu items that are applicable only to
the currently selected object. As such, they are sometimes known as "context
menus" or "shortcut menus". A popup menu is shown when the user right-clicks
on an object, or selects the object and presses Shift+F10.
Be aware that popup menus are used primarily by intermediate and advanced
users. Even some users who have used graphical desktops for many years do
not know about popup menus until somebody shows them.
Guidelines
• Provide a popup menu for every object, selectable part, and text input
target such as entry fields.
• Provide an access key for each item. However, to enhance their spatial
efficiency and readability, do not show keyboard shortcuts in popup menus.
• Since the user may not be aware of their presence, do not provide
functions that are only accessible from popup menus unless you are
confident that your target users will know how to use popup menus.
• Order items on a popup menu as follows:
o the double-click action for object, when it exists

o other commands and settings in expected frequency-of-use order

o transfer commands such as Cut, Copy, and Paste

o Input Methods, where applicable. Input Methods is provided by


GTK+ for supporting alternatives to the keyboard for input (such as
used for Japanese, Chinese, and some accessibility technologies).
• Popup menus need to be as simple as possible to maximize their
efficiency. Do not place more than about ten items on a popup menu, and
do avoid submenus.

The Menubar
• GNOME Human Interface Guidelines 2.2.1

• Menus

Figure 4-1 A typical menubar

The menubar provides a number of drop-down menus. Only the menu titles are
displayed, until the user clicks on one of them.
The menubar is normally visible at all times and is always accessible from the
keyboard, so make all the commands available in your application available on
the menubar.
Full screen mode
When your application is running in full screen mode, hide the menubar by
default. However, make its menus and items accessible from the keyboard as
usual. Pressing ESC should cause the application to leave full screen mode. A
Leave Fullscreen button should be placed in the upper right hand corner of the
window. The button should disappear after the mouse is unused for 5 seconds,
and should appear again when the moused is moved. Alternately, in applications
where the mouse is used frequently in full screen mode, all but a two pixel row of
the button may be slid off the top of the screen. The button should slide back on
the screen when the mouse moves near it.
Guidelines
• Provide a menubar in each primary application window, containing at least
a File and a Help menu.

• Organize menu titles in the standard order— see Section 4.4 ― Standard
Menus

• Donot disable menu titles. Allow the user to explore the menu, even
though there might be no available items on it at that time.

• Menu titles on a menubar are single words with their first letter capitalized.
Do not use spaces in menu titles, as this makes them easily-mistaken for
two separate menu titles. Do not use compound words (such as
WindowOptions) or hyphens (such as Window-Options) to circumvent
this guideline.

• Do not provide a mechanism for hiding the menubar, as this may be


activated accidentally. Some users will not be able to figure out how to get
the menu bar back in this case.

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