Menus

[jackamus]

One of the really useful features that would benefit AD or any AD product would be for a drop down menu to stay in view until finished with. By this I mean that multiple choices can be made in the same drop down menu and daughter menus but they always close when a selection has been made. I would like to see all menus close by clicking off the menu on the background.

Has this been suggested before?

[R C-R]

I don't know if it has been suggested before, but if you mean the Mac OS menu bar (where File, View, etc. live), this behavior is controlled by the OS & can't (to my knowledge) be changed at the application level. IOW, there is nothing the Affinity apps (or any other app that uses the system level menu interface) can do that would change it.

 

There might be some third party 'system enhancement' add-on that could, but I strongly suggest avoiding such things because they can cause weird, hard to diagnose issues because they are making fundamental changes to how the OS itself works.

[MEB]

Hi jackamus,

Can you be more specific please? To what menus/commands are you referring to specifically? The contextual menus should serve that purpose and scripting (when/if available) should also cover quite a few cases. On Affinity Photo you can already use macros to automate a series of commands too.

[jackamus]

Hi MEB,

If I want to align a number of objects spaced equally horizontally and centrally I go to Layer>Alignment> Distribute horizontally which then disappears. I then have to go back to Layer>Alignment>Align centre.

I would like to see the Layers menu stay open until all alignment selections have been made and the it can be closed by clicking on background. this could well apply to other menus that offer multiple choices that can be selected simultaneously.

 

[R C-R]

10 minutes ago, jackamus said:

If I want to align a number of objects spaced equally horizontally and centrally I go to Layer>Alignment> Distribute horizontally which then disappears.

The Layer menu is on the Mac OS menu bar so, as I said, this behavior is controlled by the OS, not the Affinity app. For the distribute functions, you can use the Alignment button on the Affinity menu bar, which drops down a window that won't close until you click Cancel or Done.

[v_kyr]

Welcome to NeXTstep/OpenStep ...

 

[carl123]

The View > Studio menu is particularly annoying

If I want to switch on/off 3 or 4 studio panels I have to go through the entire procedure 3 or 4 times

[Pšenda]

To change the behavior like NextStep it means, that every single simple choice will require two clicks (close the menu), so we'll clicking like crazy.

If the configuration of the Studio is so frequent and demanding, you might require to create a modal dialog on the toolbar, rather than overwrite the standard menu function, which would be quite different from other applications.

 

[v_kyr]

14 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

To change the behavior like NextStep it means, that every single simple choice will require two clicks (close the menu), so we'll clicking like crazy.

That was just a short incomplete description the NS tear off menus from an internet book reference. - In NS you also had other menu abilities for more rapid working flows, so as to popup your main menus where ever the mouse cursor already was without the need to move around any long ways. Sort of a right click context menu where then instead a slection highlight indicator flow along the menu entries and you had just to release the mouse (so to say make a selection without any further click). - All in all the NS/OS menu concepts have been overall in contrast to Mac/Win etc. the fastest/speediest and most productive I've ever used.

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Welcome to NeXTstep/OpenStep ...

Considering the number of menu & submenu items available in contemporary apps like Affinity, I imagine overuse of tear-off menus could quickly result in a screen so cluttered that there would be very little unobstructed room left for document windows. I never used that OS but I also imagine that, since many menu & submenu items are context sensitive, it could be very confusing to have tear-off menus coming & going depending on the app that is frontmost.

 

Regarding the Mac OS menubar that all apps share, it once had a sometimes under-appreciated advantage vs. in-app menu bars. As interface guru Bruce Tognazzini (a.k.a. "Tog") explained it, the targets for the items on this menu bar were 'infinitely tall,' meaning the mouse pointer could not go above the top of the menu bar, thus making them quicker & easier to select. Of course, these days that is not necessarily true, like in a multi-monitor setup, but it remains one of the most distinctive differences between the Mac & Windows menu systems.

 

There was once another very subtle feature of the Mac menu system that I believe Tog was responsible for that has been abandoned for no good reason I know of: back in the Classic OS days, when a submenu had been popped out, if you moved the pointer back into the parent menu & the pointer remained near but not on the parent of the submenu item, the submenu remained popped out for a short time. This made it very easy to move the pointer back into the submenu to select one of its items without having to click on the parent menu item again to pop out the submenu. This feature is not present in OS X/macOS, & I miss it a lot. 

[Pšenda]

3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

submenu remained popped out for a short time

 

This would definitely be interesting when you click on the checked menu item. It would allow you to continue checking other items.

[R C-R]

54 minutes ago, carl123 said:

The View > Studio menu is particularly annoying

If I want to switch on/off 3 or 4 studio panels I have to go through the entire procedure 3 or 4 times

Or you could set keyboard shortcuts for those items ... if you have enough unused ones to do that. I have set the ` character to show/hide the Left Studio where I keep the Macro & Library panels in AP & the Glyphs Browser panel in AD, which works well for me.

[v_kyr]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Considering the number of menu & submenu items available in contemporary apps like Affinity, I imagine overuse of tear-off menus could quickly result in a screen so cluttered that there would be very little unobstructed room left for document windows. I never used that OS but I also imagine that, since many menu & submenu items are context sensitive, it could be very confusing to have tear-off menus coming & going depending on the app that is frontmost.

See my other post about the more usual NS/OS rapid popup & selection menu way, tear off menus where just one of the many other ways you could work and handle menus under NS/OS. - Under NS/OS I had apps in use which had much more menu and submenu entries then the Affinity apps do have and it was no problem to quickly work with any of those in a more rapid fashion.

[R C-R]

Just now, Pšenda said:

This would definitely be interesting when you click on the checked menu item. It would allow you to continue checking other items.

It did not work like that -- if you did click on a submenu item, the menu disappeared, just like it does now. I think the reason for this is in some apps the menu and/or submenu items change depending on the context -- instead of items being greyed out, they just don't appear at all if they can't be used in the current context. That has the advantage that it can keep some menus short so there is less need to scroll, but the disadvantage is it can create 'where did it go?' confusion.

[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

See my other post about the more usual NS/OS rapid popup & selection menu way, tear off menus where just one of the many other ways you could work and handle menus under NS/OS. - Under NS/OS I had apps in use which had much more menu and submenu entries then the Affinity apps do have and it was no problem to quickly work with any of those in a more rapid fashion.

Maybe so, but I think for me the tear-off menus feature would be confusing, distracting, or both, so I would probably never use it.

 

Personally, I almost always want drop down menus to get out of the way ASAP after I have selected something so I can see its effects. The distance to the main menu bar is a non-issue for me because I use a Kensington trackball that makes it very easy to flick the ball, let it spin a bit to reach the menu bar area, select a menu item, & then flick it again to get back to where I was in the workspace. It comes with a utility that lets users tweak the pointer sensitivity & acceleration separately, on a per-app basis if desired, & that plus the weight & momentum of the ball itself make it perfect for this. I have used one or another of these Kensington trackballs for 30+ years so at this point using it for this is etched into my muscle memory so well that I never even think about it.

 

Anyway, I think the bottom line is 'one size does not fit all,' so choice (to the extent the OS allows it) is a good thing. 

[dutchshader]

on windows you could use, alt-v and than d and your in studio. 

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, dutchshader said:

on windows you could use, alt-v and than d and your in studio. 

For either OS, as long as you can come up with keyboard shortcuts that are easy enough to use & remember, & don't conflict with any of the others you want to use for other things, then there is far less need to access menus or submenus at all. Of course, that can be a challenge in itself!

[Pšenda]

15 minutes ago, R C-R said:

& remember

 

You do not need to remember keyboard shortcuts for menu navigation. When you press Alt, the appropriate letter is always displayed.

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

You do not need to remember keyboard shortcuts for menu navigation. When you press Alt, the appropriate letter is always displayed.

I am not sure what you mean. For example, if a keyboard shortcut is assigned to a submenu item, where is this displayed if the parent menu is not open?

[v_kyr]

57 minutes ago, R C-R said:

...Personally, I almost always want drop down menus to get out of the way ASAP after I have selected something so I can see its effects. The distance to the main menu bar is a non-issue for me because I use a Kensington trackball that makes it very easy to flick the ball, let it spin a bit to reach the menu bar area, select a menu item, & then flick it again to get back to where I was in the workspace...

That's what the NS menu system handling offered (drop down menus to get out of the way ASAP) right at the position the mouse cursor already stays, no bloddy scolling/moving up and down in order to reach some far away menus, who want's to do that unnecessary trackball or mouse fiddling moving around in a rapid working process. It's much more productive if you can finetuning things in drawings, text or whatever right at the point you actually are.

[Pšenda]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

For example, if a keyboard shortcut is assigned to a submenu item, where is this displayed if the parent menu is not open?

 

dutchschader write: "alt-v and than d and your in studio".

The keyboard shortcuts for moving in the menu replace the lengthy mouse clicks.

[jackamus]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

The Layer menu is on the Mac OS menu bar so, as I said, this behavior is controlled by the OS, not the Affinity app. For the distribute functions, you can use the Alignment button on the Affinity menu bar, which drops down a window that won't close until you click Cancel or Done.

That is embarrassing not to have realised that!

Looks like my original question opened a can of worms so to speak about menu actions.

[R C-R]

8 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

 

dutchschader write: "alt-v and than d and your in studio".

The keyboard shortcuts for moving in the menu replace the lengthy mouse clicks.

Maybe I am just dense but I do not understand what that means or how it works. At least on Macs, there is no keyboard shortcut that will bring up the Studio submenu, just ones that execute individual submenu choices. As I understand it, Windows provides shortcuts for opening main menu items like the View menu that contains the Studio item & its submenu choices, but that is not the same thing as direct access to the submenu items or their shortcuts ... right?

[MEB]

That's specific to Windows and can be used for both menu navigation and to launch commands. So you can use the letters to navigate menus/submenus (the letters are underlined when you press alt) and launch the commands themselves (which may also have a letter assigned when you press alt) or alternatively simply enter the command shortcut directly as on the Mac.

[v_kyr]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

The Layer menu is on the Mac OS menu bar so, as I said, this behavior is controlled by the OS, not the Affinity app. For the distribute functions, you can use the Alignment button on the Affinity menu bar, which drops down a window that won't close until you click Cancel or Done.

BTW the shown is no menu bar, it's instead a button bar (Affinity calls this symbol bar), there is quite a common difference between buttons and app/system menus.