[dev] [commits] Horde branch master updated. 62b322a88d6e33fe766d813d16b6580fc4974775

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:

>> My one issue with the current context menus is that, unlike say  
>> Windows, the row that triggers the submenu *is* a valid clickable  
>> item.  In Windows, that isn't the case.  I'd sort of like to see a  
>> context-menu UI where, for items that are clickable by themselves,  
>> that the submenu is not displayed unless you hover over the  
>> right-most 15% of the row.  Especially if those submenus are  
>> "advanced" options, they shouldn't be displayed to a normal user  
>> but should be easily available for more advanced users.
>
> I completely lost you here.

In Windows, say you have a menu with two entries:

File
Other >

"File" is directly clickable.  "Other" is a submenu.  Hovering over  
Other opens the submenu.  But Other *itself* is never clickable.

That is different from our context menus, where the parent item MAY be  
clickable (and may not).  It's not consistent UI - and these kind of  
window UI menus are both 1) common and 2) generally consistent across  
various UIs.  So making "Other" clickable, in Horde, may be fairly  
useless since people don't know to click on it in the first place.

So in this situation, it sounds great to say just add a submenu to the  
parent action with the thought that only advanced users would ever  
reach the next level.  But the problem is that once you introduce a  
submenu, you change the expected behavior of the parent item.  So you  
are forcing even novice users to have to navigate (or at least view)  
the submenu contents.  And that's not great UI either.

I was suggesting that we introduce a type of context menu action where  
the submenu is not automatically displayed on hover -- unless you  
happen to hover over the "activating" area.  i.e. the popdown icon.   
But this activating area would only be a small portion of the menu  
entry, so generally the submenu would never pop open unless/until it  
is explicitly desired.

michael

___________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at horde.org]