On Tuesday 20,April,2010 05:53 PM, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: > Philipp Wendler wrote on 15/04/10 14:18: >> ... >> Am 15/04/10 14:15, schrieb Matthew Paul Thomas: >> ... >>> But even though (a variation of) that guideline has been around since >>> Windows 95, it hasn't worked out well. Many users have given up on >>> left-clicking on notification area items -- probably, I think, because >>> the left-click action wasn't predictable or memorable enough. Instead, >>> they right-click to get the menu every time. "What? You can left-click >>> on that thing and it does something different from right clicking? >>> Dude, why didn't anybody tell me this? I've been doing it the hard way >>> all this time!" >>> <http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2009/05/01/9581563.aspx> > >> For me this shows that it is not worth trying to let the indicators >> behave exactly like a single other UI component. This interaction >> pattern is the same as for almost all icons in Windows (desktop, start >> menu, files in the explorer etc., with toolbars being probably the >> single big exception) and for these icons everybody knows how to use >> it. But indicators look somewhat different and users expect them to do >> something different, so they don't expect indicators to support the >> same interaction pattern. > > How do they look different? The only difference I can see is that they > have icons in their titles. So does the Applications menu. I don't quite see the similarity between the Applications menu and the application indicators, really. But I do see the similarity between a toolbar icon that has a menu, and an application indicator. The Applications menu has an icon *and* text. Application indicators have icons as the buttons instead of text, and unlike toolbar icons, they do not have tooltips. In this aspect, I can only see application indicators as the bastard child of menus and toolbar icons. An aforementioned example of a menu that does not use text in its menu buttons was Google Chromium, but its menu comes from a toolbar button, not a menu button -- it lives on the toolbar. > [...] -- Kind regards, Chow Loong Jin
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