Re: Indicating multilevel picks in menus

[Yvonne deGraw <yvonne -at- SHARK -dot- SMARTSTAR -dot- COM>]

Steve Hollander wrote:
>In a recent posting, Fred Jacobsen mentioned using the pipe [|] and various
>other characters to make multilevel picks from menus--for example,

We also use the | character (which we call a vertical bar) for multilevel
menu picks. Our reasons for choosing this character were:

1. It wouldn't be confused with a file notation as would / or \. (We run on
   both UNIX and PC platforms.) UNIX uses | for piping, but at least that
   is less common than naming a file.

2. It can be typed in ASCII. That way our customer support people can use
   the same notation in email to customers.

We also put the menu title and command title in bold because some command
titles contain multiple words and it helps to be able to see quickly where
the menu choice begins and ends.

Our customers seem to like this notation. I've even seen them extend it to
include the name of the window in which the command occurs:

    window_name | menu_name | command

I agree with Sue Gallagher, who points out:

> **Users** make the connection readily and appreciate not
> having to read the extra word it takes to say "select ...
> from the ... menu" (which is also backward from the way they
> select the options, so has always bothered me).

This "backwardness" was what made me look for another solution initially.
After adopting this solution, I found that users also appreciated having
a symbol/type convention that they could scan for quickly in documents.

Yvonne DeGraw
yvonne -at- shark -dot- smartstar -dot- com