Overview

Menus are one of the most basic parts of the graphical user interface. In Cocoa, they are easy to set up; in MacApp Carbon-based applications, they are nearly as easy.

The Aqua Human Interface Guidelines (available on Apple s Web site via a link on http://developer.apple.com/ue/) provides the last word on menu styling and placement. In short, the guidelines request that you keep your menu items short, absolutely clear, and organized in a logical manner. Long-standing arguments about the proper use of menus have simmered down, and the consensus is that menus should be short (a dozen items is plenty), and that hierarchical menus (submenus) can be overused with extraordinary ease.

This chapter is brief in part because menus are so easy to implement in Cocoa, but also because menus no longer have the role they used to have in the interface.

Menus and Other Interface Elements

The original Macintosh (and other graphical user interface systems) consisted of relatively small screens. The routine for users was simple: Select something in the active window, then choose the menu command to act on it. With small screens and smaller windows, this was about the extent of the interface.

With the advent of larger screens and more powerful processors, windows began to accumulate additional controls. If you compare screen shots of modern software with that from 10 or 15 years ago, you will be struck by the proliferation of controls everywhere: in windows, tucked into corners of scroll bars (placards), in palettes, and...