|
![](/i/fill.gif) |
>> You forgot one of the most braindead ideas that has ever come from
>> Microsoft: Adaptive menus.
>
> I don't know. I like adaptive menus, when they're done well. The "new"
> start menu, that puts the programs you use all the time near the top,
> and the 2003-era Word menus, where they only show you options you've
> used but reveal everything if you hover for a bit, both seem to work
> nicely and without much confusion, once you figure out what's going on.
>
> Now, stuff where it rearranges itself and does *not* present all the
> possibilities is nasty, yes.
The key thing is, Word menues do not change their ordering at random.
They only change which options are or aren't visible initially.
The new-style start menu is just horrid. Each time you use a different
program, the order of the icons on the start menu changes. Horrid,
horrid, horrid! >_<
(Can you tell I have that mis-feature turned off? Interestingly, if you
do that you get a menu rather like what Word has - the programs you
actually use show up, and the ones you don't are initially hidden, but
everything is always *in the same order*.)
> I think you have to do something when you wind up with so many options
> they no longer even fit on a menu. That's probably one reason MS has
> good help systems - you'd not find half the stuff if you couldn't search
> help for "where the H___ have you hidden the XYZ options in *this*
> version now???"
Yeah, well... M$ does like to rearrange menus just to make each version
of Word look "new", even though it actually contains exactly the same
functionallity.
> And I still miss the Smalltalk technique of bringing up the pop-up menu
> such that the previous thing you selected is selected again for you. :-)
I don't like that. It means you have to mentually "guess" which option
will be hilighted each time you use it. I'd rather have the options show
up a predictable distance from my mouse pointer...
Post a reply to this message
|
![](/i/fill.gif) |