RE: Infrastructural complexity.

[Drew Adams]

> Choosing an item off of a virtual input device 
> hierarchical menu should produce a synthetic 
> input event, such as [CMD-MENU FIND-FILE].
> 
> That would not directly call "find-file" it would
> go through the usual keymap process to find the 
> binding for [CMD-MENU FIND-FILE].

LaCarte does go through the menu structure to look up a command. (It does not,
however, produce a pseudo input event.)

> For example, suppose I type C-h k
> Next, I pick a menu item off of the command menu.
> I should see the doc string for the command
> that would be invoked had I not typed C-h k first.
> 
> In tmm-mode, instead, I get the documentation 
> string for "tmm-shortcut".

FWIW -

Icicles does that (again, though, not in the same way). You can complete key
sequences, including menu-bar menus. And you can see the doc for each completion
candidate (menu item or submenu).

You see the first doc-string line automatically (in the mode line of
*Completions*) if you cycle among candidates. And you can see the full doc
string for any candidates on demand.

> Menu bars are an example of a virtual input/output device.
> Scrollbars are examples of virtual input/output devices.
> So are mode lines.   A little hierarchical command menu
> could be the same sort of thing.

So, I would think, is the minibuffer. (I'm just following your examples. I
didn't see any definition of virtual i/o device, so I might be mistaken.)

> A very slight generalization
> would allow lisp programs to specify both plain text and an 
> icon for each menu item.  With that, we have in one subsystem
> both toolbars, as in modern guis, and text based command menus
> as in those ancient PC programs.

Yes, icons in some menus (with or as replacement of text) could perhaps
sometimes be useful.  Similarly, for other kinds of completion candidates: file
types, for instance, for file-name candidates.

With Icicles, you can add icons to text candidates (including menu items) or use
them instead of text: just add an image using s `display' property for the
menu-item candidate. But I have never done so. (I haven't tried to use Emacs
with images. Seems like too much trouble on Windows.)