| JavaTM Look and Feel Design Guidelines: Advanced Topics > Part I: General Topics > 3: Menus > Menu Elements | |
Figure 22 shows menus elements in a typical application.
Figure 22 Menu Elements
In Figure 22:
Menu elements in most applications should have these characteristics, each of which promotes usability.
When a window is at its default size, ensure that the titles of its
drop-down menus all fit on a single line in the menu bar, without being
truncated.
Ensure that the title of a drop-down menu consists of exactly one word.
In drop-down menus, ensure that the label of each menu item differs
from the menu title.
Keyboard shortcuts and mnemonics are keyboard equivalents to menu items.
An item's mnemonic differs from its keyboard shortcut. Figure 22 shows mnemonics and keyboard shortcuts for items in a typical File menu.
Table 5 lists mnemonics for typical menus and menu items. To use the mnemonics in Table 5, users can simultaneously press the Alt key and the character key that corresponds to the underlined letter or numeral. (For more information, see Chapter 6 of Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, 2d ed.)
File
New, New Window, Open, Open in New Window, Open in Current Window, Close, Save, Save As, Page Setup, Print, Preferences, File Properties1, Exit
Edit
Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete, Find, Find Again, Select All
Format
Bold, Italic, Underline, Align Left, Align Center, Align Right
View
Large Icons, Small Icons, List, Details, Sort By, Filter, Zoom In, Zoom Out, Refresh
Help
Contents, Tutorial, Index, Search, About Application-Name
1
Assign "e" as the mnemonic for the File Properties item only if the name represented by File contains no
better letter for the mnemonic.
Table 6 lists common keyboard shortcuts.
For more information about keyboard shortcuts and mnemonics, see those topics in Chapter 6 of Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, 2d ed. and elsewhere in that book.
Assign mnemonics to all menu titles and menu items. Use the
mnemonics in Table 5 if your application includes any of the menu titles and
menu items listed there.
Provide keyboard shortcuts for frequently used menu items. Use the
keyboard shortcuts in Table 6, if possible.
A menu item is dimmed when its command is unavailable. In Figure 23, the Paste and Paste Special items are unavailable and, therefore, dimmed.
Figure 23 Menu With Unavailable Items
Dim a menu item if it represents an unavailable command, and users can
make that command available without exiting the application. If the command
becomes available, undim the menu item. (For more information on available
and unavailable menu items, see Chapter 9 of Java Look and Feel Design
Guidelines, 2d ed.)
Like the conventions described so far in this chapter, the following conventions help users to work with menus.
You can group menu items by inserting separators between groups. In Figure 23, the Undo and Redo items of the Edit menu are a group, set apart from the menu's other groups by a separator.
An ellipsis (...) at the end of a menu item indicates that an application needs additional user input to execute the item's command. An ellipsis indicates that the application will display a dialog box before executing the command. However, not all menu items that open additional windows should have an ellipsis. For example, the About item in a Help menu should not end in an ellipsis.
Place an ellipsis (...) at the end of a menu item only if that item opens a
dialog box that requests user input for completing an action.
Do not place an ellipsis (...) after a menu item that opens a property
window.
You can place graphics before the leading edge of menu items, as in Figure 22.
Provide menu item graphics only if there are corresponding toolbar
button graphics in your application. The graphics help users associate the
toolbar button with the corresponding menu command. Provide menu item
graphics for all the qualified menu items or for none of them.
The recommended menu graphics are at the following web site:
http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/techDocs/hi/repository/
| Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines: Advanced Topics.
Copyright 2001. Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
|
