Request for GNUstep HIG and context menu suggestion.

[Banlu Kemiyatorn]

Dear list,
        Since GNUstep is getting more and more ready (already) to be used
in any serious application development. I think we need a human interface
manifesto for what we should and shouldn't have in our HIG. I'll try to
collect informations by making a page for serveral issue on interface
on the wiki page as soon as possible and one route should be taken in time.
ie. we must not end up discussing eternally.
        As an attempt to start working on human interface issues. I'd like to
suggest a guide line for doing context menu properly. The context menu
has a problem with the current right-click-menu scheme. (Checking the
possible current implementation of a context menu in GNUmail)
That if you click on the window just to get the global menu but then it
was an item that provide context menu then you'll need to click *again*
somewhere else to get the global menu. One way to solve this problem
is 1) by forcing the context menu to be a submenu in the global menu tree.
(good thing since context menu entries should be in the global menu already)
And 2) the global menu should be mapped along the submenu, so user can
roll back to other part of menu in case that she did click in a wrong place.

For better understanding of what I've mention, I put a mock-up shot here.
Please check the figure 1 (there are 3 figures put along together)

http://maliwan.sourceforge.net/contextmenu.png

I personally like context menu. It drives the task base environment idea
which make someone understand/able to use the system faster. (And putting it 
along
with the global menu actually make them understand things even better.)
The mock figure 2,3 is the future plan when NSWindow have true alpha channel
from the new xserver development. The full opaque menu window is the one
that is under mouse-drag. I'd suggest you to ignore this eye-candy crap at
the moment and keep focus on more important stuffs like Fitt's laws or mouse
movement.

Thank you,
id