shortening the World menu

The World menu is quite tall and has several redundant and/or unused
items in it.  Here is a proposed list of entries to remove:

Browser
Workspace
Transscript
Test Runner

(The above four because they're available from the open... menu).

previous project
jump to project...
save project
load project

(The above four because they're either accessible from the
"projects..." menu or should be).

undo -- because it doesn't work.

authoring tools...
playfield options....
telemorphic...

(The above three because they're application-specific -- let Etoys
register Service Entry's or whatever).

make screenshot -- All OS's have this.

============

That's 13, count 'em, 13 useless entries from the World menu we could
get rid of.

Also, note, we have a preference called "simpleMenus" which could be
used to reconcile any differences we might have.

Yes, the world menu seems overloaded. But you cannot just remove some entries because you can find them somewhere else. There is no shorter access to the tools "Browser", "Workspace", "Transcript", "Test Runner" besides using a keyboard shortcut. The "Open..." Menu involves additional navigational overhead (point&click&point&click...). Even the world main docking bar involves more mouse navigation overhead than using the world menu.

However, I vote for refactoring those things:

Save
Save as...
Save as new version
Save and quit
Quit

...because I often accidentally fail to select the correct one. :) In particular, I don't like "Save and quit" and I don't like having "Quit" near "Save". :) Who uses "Save as new version" if we've got "Save as.."? I just spoils new versions by accident...

Best,
Marcel

On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 11:05 AM, Marcel Taeumel
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> Yes, the world menu seems overloaded. But you cannot just remove some entries
> because you can find them somewhere else. There is no shorter access to the
> tools "Browser", "Workspace", "Transcript", "Test Runner" besides using a
> keyboard shortcut. The "Open..." Menu involves additional navigational
> overhead (point&click&point&click...). Even the world main docking bar
> involves more mouse navigation overhead than using the world menu.

We should _remove_ the inefficient ways of navigation and working from
the IDE.  When someone opens a Browser from the World Menu, they're
immediately faced with long scrolling lists and they have to click at
least three more times to get anywhere (not including scrolling!).
Talk about navigation overhead!  That route will _always_ be more
overhead than using the Search bar, or spawning browsers from existing
browsers.

I could live without "Save as new version" and "Save and quit".

All told, that's 15 menu items on World Menu I could easily live without.

On 18-05-2014, at 2:21 PM, Chris Muller <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I could live without "Save as new version" and "Save and quit”.
>

I suggest a single entry in the menu - say, ‘save/quit’ - that opens a simple dialogue with facilities for handling the save, save as, save and quit (do we need 'save as and quit'? Probably not) and just plain quit, plus I think ‘cancel’ just to make sure you aren’t stuck with one of those choices.

I appreciate that the idea of a menu entry opening a dialogue directly just as it would a sub-menu might seem strange but it’s one of the RISC OS UI tricks that is really useful. Sure, you can have a menu entry that opens a dialogue when clicked upon but that’s not the same; I suggest being able to have dialogues be part of the menu/submenu tree. Think of it as menu>dialogue rather than menu… dialogue.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

That's right. But what about Workspace, Transcript and Test Runner? Where do you spawn them from? Anyway, I just thought of different ways for opening an empty browser. :)

Best,
Marcel

On May 18, 2014, at 2:21 PM, Chris Muller <[hidden email]> wrote:

Not necessarily ;-).  In VMMaker I've included three utility methods added to the do... submenu that open multitab browsers with tabs for several classes.

Here are some ideas that make browsers more effective:

Remember the size and position of the last opened browser and open new browsers with the same size and position, changing the position if there's already a browser there.

Remember the last selected category and selecting that category ;if still extant) when opening new browsers

Eliot, dude you are the King of modal browsing.  ;-)  Smalltalk
brought multiple overlapping windows to the world and you eschew that
for "multitab browsers..?"

There are basically three use-cases:

  1) Browse the package model (SystemBrowser)
  2) Browse the class model (HierarchyBrowser)
  3) Browse behavior, which may cut across the class model
(TracingMessagesBrowser).

Most people use SystemBrowsers to do all three, but its more
productive to employ each tool for its purpose.

> Here are some ideas that make browsers more effective:
>
> Remember the size and position of the last opened browser and open new browsers with the same size and position, changing the position if there's already a browser there.

I know there are a couple of strategies for window layout, did you try
flipping that preference (search for stagger)?  It may need some
improvement.

> Remember the last selected category and selecting that category ;if still extant) when opening new browsers

THE last-selected "Category?" -- so, I guess you're talking about one
global modal SystemBrowser?  Which tab?  ;-)

It sounds like you're opening your new browsers from a "global
starting point," (which provides no context for pre-selection), and
then scrolling to your desired place.  But if you "follow the trail"
by spawning your new browsers from an existing browsers, it already
does that..

Maybe you would like to have a "Recent Visits" list, just like we
already have "Recent Submissions"..

On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 9:04 AM, Marcel Taeumel
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> That's right. But what about Workspace, Transcript and Test Runner? Where do
> you spawn them from? Anyway, I just thought of different ways for opening an
> empty browser. :)

My thoughts are, since the World menu bears responsibility for
providing access to the entire system, it should not also be a
short-cut mechanism.  There are already so many ways to make
short-cuts.  The "open.." menu can be tacked up onto the desktop.
Individual menu entries can be cloned and dragged straight into to the
Docking Bar.  There's also Control+3 and also the hot-keys.

With all of those, additional access from the main World menu starts
to become less valuable than a shorter World menu.

On 19.05.2014, at 20:08, Chris Muller <[hidden email]> wrote:
The World Menu is the most immediate thing you can get access with.
It has to has the most relevant short cuts. IMHO, lets put “the whole system”
somewhere else, be it in a submenu of the world menu, or one of the
other menus.

The left-click menu is the only thing that predictably always gives
the same result (not true for the other menus, thanks to platform differences
and swap mouse buttons) AND is discoverable (not true for shortcuts and
whatever ctrl-3 is, I have no image at hand).

Best
        -Tobias

On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 1:14 PM, Tobias Pape <[hidden email]> wrote:
Ok, I'm convinced.  What about those other entries I mentioned?  Are
you ok about trimming any of those?

On 5/19/14, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
..
> I suggest a single entry in the menu - say, ‘save/quit’ - that opens a
> simple dialogue with facilities for handling the save, save as, save and
> quit (do we need 'save as and quit'? Probably not) and just plain quit, plus
> I think ‘cancel’ just to make sure you aren’t stuck with one of those
> choices.

+1