A. Smith
Abstract
An increasing number of APLs support the 'Mac-like' interface, with its pioneering ideas of Windows, Icons, Mice and Pull-down Menus. Technically exciting these may be; what is lacking is any useful experience of handling these techniques in APL application design.
The author has tackled the problem from the application end: a collection of functions has been evolved (written in APL*PLUS/PC) to provide simple windows and menus using text characters only.
The major benefits of the windowing/menu approach are found to be: 1) portability of ideas. What runs now on the PC and the Amiga will largely run on VS APL under GDDM (Vn 2) on the mainframe. 2) simplicity of design. With windows you can throw away many of those AP124-type panels and revert to 'quote-quad' input. 3) ease of validation. With a scroll-bar selection, the user has no choice but to input a valid reply. 4) ease of use, and 'PC' feel. Why not make Lotus-123 users feel at home?
Typical applications include a shop-floor information system for chocolate manufacture, and a 'rule-inducing' expert system shell. Copies of the window functions are included at the end of this paper, or are available via the BAA Software Exchange.
Index Terms
- Windows and pop-up menus in application design
Recommendations
Windows and pop-up menus in application design
APL '88: Proceedings of the international conference on APLAn increasing number of APLs support the 'Mac-like' interface, with its pioneering ideas of Windows, Icons, Mice and Pull-down Menus. Technically exciting these may be; what is lacking is any useful experience of handling these techniques in APL ...
Control menus: excecution and control in a single interactor
CHI EA '00: CHI '00 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing SystemsWe propose a new type of contextual pop-up menu called a control menu. These menus combine the selection of an operation and the control of this operation. They integrate up to two scroll bars or spin-boxes and thus allow users to keep their attention ...
Design issues related to pie menus for 5-way joysticks
Mobility '07: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on mobile technology, applications, and systems and the 1st international symposium on Computer human interaction in mobile technologyAlthough linear textual menus are a widely adopted solution in the mobile phone user interfaces, alternatives that would take smaller amount of screen real estate exist, e.g. toolbars and pie menus. Pie menus also provide access to functions with fewer ...
Comments