Thread View: comp.windows.misc
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Started by Mike (I'll think of something ye...
Sat, 28 Oct 1989 05:33
Pie menus
Author: Mike (I'll think of something ye...
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1989 05:33
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1989 05:33
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>> > > That's an implementation detail, then. On the Amiga, for instance, the >> > > menus don't go through the layers system: the screen is frozen while the >> > > menu is up, but because it's so fast the screen isn't frozen for very long. >> >> > Dubious advantage. >> >> Well, it's a tradeoff. The biggest overhead in windowing seems to be managing >> the clipping lists rather than actually copying bits around. For something >> that's guaranteed to be short duration (unless you replace your mouse buttons >> with toggle switches :->) it's an OK tradeoff. It's not really an implementation detail. The win on pie menus is that you can make most any selection without being able to see the menu. I've as yet to run into any rectangular menu system (other than pie menus done in a rectangle) of which this was true. The result of this is that the menu selections wind up in the motion domain, not the menu domain. I make a selection without seeing any menus, because I know which way to go (up is paste; right click up opens a window on violet.berkeley.edu, etc). After the selection is made, rendering the menu just annoys me (by flashing it on and then deleting it), and doesn't really tell me anything that completing the action would. If a pie menu system renders menus even if the selection has been made, it's got a major misfeature, if not an outright bug. It sounds like Don may have changed things so that it does the rendering anyway. This is dissapointing. <mike -- Es brillig war. Die schlichte Toven Mike Meyer Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; mwm@berkeley.edu Und aller-mumsige Burggoven ucbvax!mwm Die mohmem Rath' ausgraben. mwm@ucbjade.BITNET
Re: Pie menus
Author: Bruce Barnett
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 1989 17:37
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 1989 17:37
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In article <1989Oct28.053358.1517@agate.berkeley.edu>, mwm@mica (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer) writes:
>If a pie menu system renders menus even if the selection has been
>made, it's got a major misfeature, if not an outright bug. It sounds
>like Don may have changed things so that it does the rendering anyway.
>This is dissapointing.
To quote Don's paper on PSIBER Space:
"When you mouse ahead through a pie menu selection quickly enough, the
menu is not displayed, and the shape of a pac-man briefly flashes on the
screen, with its mouth pointing in the direction of the selected menu item.
This "mouse ahead display suppression" speeds up interaction considerably by
avoiding unnecessary menu display, and makes it practically impossible for the
casual observer to follow what is going on. The flashing pac-man effect gives
you some computationally inexpensive feedback of the menu selection, and reas-
sures observers that you are racking up lots of points."
"This paper will be presented at the 1989 Usenix Monterey Graphics workshop."
--
Bruce G. Barnett <barnett@crd.ge.com> uunet!crdgw1!barnett
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