[TYPO3-hci] Quick Question: Pull-down menu library?

[Erik Svendsen]

Hello Michael,

> I think the real problem lies in having more than one menu level,
> which is horrible for any UI. Basically, a 1-level-dropdown menu
> already requires quite an effort to click, even for me as a regular
> mouse user. In regular desktop apps I hardly ever use the menu, and
> never ever a 2-level-item unless I really need to.
> 
> I think we should just make sure that there is only one level in every
> menu. I vaguely remember that e.g. OS X apps don't have more than one
> menu level at all, if they can help it.
> 
> Greetings,
> Michael

+1. More than 1-level-dropdown are not the best way when you consider usability.

Myself I find tabbed menus, like the proposal of Tapio/Peter as a better 
choice. And there is a reason that MS has ditched most of it's dropdown in 
Office 2007, and replaced it with tabbed menus. Even if I don't are any MS 
fan, I have to say I find the their new HCI an improvement in many ways. 

The cons are that tabbed menus takes some more space on the top of the page. 
But I don't think that are a big issue. With most of the users probably on 
1280 x 1024 (or at least 1024 x 768) screens, and scrolling down a natural 
habitt, I don't find it any problem using some more pixels to get a menu 
who really are usable.

Tabbed menus combined with use of shortcuts would be my prefered choice.

This has also a logic compared to the flexform, who also are some kind of 
tabbed menus.

WBR,
Erik Svendsen
www.linnearad.no