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I have been thinking about one type of menu navigation control that would be interesting to try out. After looking at Nick Hemsley's Class Heirarchy viewer as a potential navigation control and some other menu navigation controls, I have dreamed up a similar type of control. It's probably not original, but I can't say that I've actually seen it anywhere.
This control would look like a 2D heirarchy tree laid out in a series of circles around a central root, in a similar manner to Hemsley's 3D sphere layout, but flat. The interaction would work like this:
1. Some key-or-mouse click would bring up the "Crazy Spider" menu with the central root at the current cursor position, context menu style. Or maybe it would be a permanent display in a particular interactor portal window.
2. As the mouse cursor is moved in one direction or another, the part of the tree that it passes over or near is magnified and somewhat separated from the rest of the tree. The amount of magnification is subject to change, either after some experimentation or maybe set according to individual preference. The branches on the leaf side of the current cursor position would be included in this magnification, not just that position itself. That might be subject to some experimentation too.
3. The typical mouse click to select a node of the tree would cause the action associated with that node to be carried out (which could be most anything, like the snapshots in the Jasmine Navigator Dock, an object to be loaded, an action to be carried out with a previously-selected 3D object). If this control is instanced as a context menu, then this would also cause it to go away. If it is a permanent inhabitant of a particular interactor window, then of course it would stay there.
Maybe someday, I'll try this out. I have seen some kind of round directional-sensitive control before, but don't remember where it was. I'll have to research that ...
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