Re: [XBoard-devel] ICS context menu

[Eric Mullins]

h.g. muller wrote:
> > It is traditional windows logic to use the buttonup event for actions.
> > Go to any menu in any program and downclick only but don't release 
> > the mouse.  Nothing happens until you release the mouse.  If you 
> > change your mind about the action, you simply move away the mouse 
> > from the item and then release.
> >
> > That's why the buttonup event is used-- so you can change your mind 
> > on misclicks.
>
> OK, I see the logic, and indeed the right-click menu in NotePad 
> behaves that way.
> But left-clicking the menu bar of mmost programms I tried, including 
> NotePad,
> the pull-down menus appear on the down-click. And you can select an 
> item there
> on the corresponding up-click, if you move there. If not, the menu 
> says open until
> a second click. So Windos users are not entirely unfamiliar with this 
> behavior.

I did some testing on context menus with various programs to see how 
they implement it.  It seems most of them use the UP event (all that I 
tested actually, including programs I've written), and I was able to 
change my mind by moving outside the application window before release.  
Moving to the application's title bar caused the normal system context 
menu, so the only way to prevent it, it seems, is to move outside the 
window you started in.  That behavior seems reasonable to me, and it's 
very standard.

I see the logic of what you want to do also.  I tend to err on the side 
of familiarity in these cases.  But I don't think it would be a big 
problem to do it the way you suggest.

> If the 'action' is opening a menu, this logic seems a bit 
> over-cautious. I could even
> make an up-click outside the menu immediately pop it down, so that the 
> logic
> down-move-up to cancel the action fully applies. People that like the 
> meu to stay
> up after a full click could simply define an empty menu position under 
> the mouse
> pointer, and an up-click there would then be ignored and keep the menu 
> open.


On a completely unrelated note, I got irritated enough at my email 
program's inability to recognize this list that I went and found an 
addon that lets it automatically reply to the list instead of the 
author.  I don't know if other people have had this problem, but a large 
percentage of the time I reply to the list, it goes to the author 
because I forget to modify the recipient.